Zelensky calls for speed delivery of Western Tanks

Ukraine’s president thanked the leaders of the West for sending tanks to help the country fight Russia. He also said that the tanks needed to get there quickly.

Volodymyr Zelensky also asked the West to send long-range missiles and fighter jets in his nightly address.

After the US and Germany said they would send Abrams and Leopard tanks to Ukraine, he said what he said.

Russia called the announcement a “blatant provocation” and promised to destroy any tanks that were sent.

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, said that the tanks would “burn like all the others.” “They just cost a lot of money.”

Mr. Zelensky said he told Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that “progress must be made in other areas of our defence cooperation,” with Ukraine asking for long-range missiles and artillery.

He pushed for the West to send tanks quickly and in large numbers. “We must make a tank force, a freedom force, so strong that after it strikes, tyranny will never rise up again,” he said.

After securing the tanks, Mr. Zelensky is likely to turn his attention to giving the Ukrainian air force more technologically advanced fighter jets. However, many Western governments are still against this because they are afraid the planes could be used to attack targets inside Russia.

In a speech to the Bundestag in Berlin on Wednesday, Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, talked about the plan for the tanks and said that “no fighter jets will be sent to Ukraine.”

Wednesday, US President Joe Biden said that the US would send 31 battle tanks called M1 Abrams to Ukraine.

The decision to send the tanks was made just a few hours after Germany said it would send 14 Leopard 2 tanks to the battlefield in Ukraine.

Berlin also made it possible for other European countries to give tanks made in Germany that they already had in stock.

Ukraine has been asking its Western allies for months to send the equipment.

It saw the two announcements as a turning point that would give its military a chance to get back on track and take back territory that Moscow had taken almost a year ago.

It also said that the tanks could help stop a possible spring offensive by Russia.

When he announced that the US would put tanks on the battlefield, US President Joe Biden said that Mr. Putin thought that Europe and the US would “weaken our resolve.” He added, “He was wrong from the start, and he is still wrong.”

“We’re also giving the Ukraine the parts and tools they need to keep these tanks running well in battle,” he said.

“This is about helping Ukraine protect and defend its land. It is not a threat to Russia that it will attack.”

Mr. Biden also said that the number of tanks in a Ukrainian tank battalion is usually 31. This is why that number was agreed upon.

The US decision, on the other hand, shows that they have changed their mind. The Biden administration has been saying for a while that the heavy M1 Abrams tanks would be hard to deliver, expensive to maintain, and hard for Ukrainian troops to operate.