The dispute dominated the work of the meeting of NATO defense ministers at Ramstein Air Base in Germany regarding supplying Ukraine with German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks or allowing other countries to do so.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that his country does not have any new announcement regarding supplying Ukraine with tanks, while German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius denied Berlin's opposition to transferring "Leopard 2" tanks to Kyiv unilaterally, but said that his country is ready to move quickly if an agreement is reached. agreement between allies.

For his part, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, said that it would be difficult to defeat the Russian forces during the current year from every part they occupied in Ukraine.

Milley added in a joint press conference with the US Secretary of Defense at the Ramstein base in Germany that the war in Ukraine must end at the negotiating table, like many wars in the world, stressing that support for Kiev will continue as long as the war continues.

Milley estimated the Russian casualties in Ukraine at more than 100,000 dead.

For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Kyiv must work to provide modern tanks, and there is no alternative to making a decision on that.

Zelensky added in a speech that the Rammstein meeting would enhance Ukraine's resilience, and that he had produced results he described as important.


Meanwhile, the Ukrainian-speaking Voice of America channel quoted Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov as saying that Ukrainian forces will train on German "Leopard 2" tanks in Poland, despite the allies' failure to reach an agreement to supply Kyiv with those tanks.

Describing the tank training as an achievement, Reznikov attributed the success to Poland's efforts.

In the same context, Reuters quoted a senior US administration official as saying that senior US officials advised Ukraine to postpone launching a major attack on Russian forces until it obtains additional supplies of US weapons and training in their use.

The American official confirmed the United States' adherence to its decision not to supply Ukraine with Abrams tanks at the present time, because they are expensive and difficult to maintain, as he put it.

Classification of Wagner forces

In another context, John Kirby, Strategic Communications Coordinator at the US National Security Council, said that the US Treasury will classify the Russian Wagner forces as a criminal organization.

Kirby added that Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly relying on Wagner's forces in his war against Ukraine, despite the growing tensions between the Russian army and those forces.


He pointed out that Wagner has about 50,000 members in Ukraine, expecting that number to rise with the continuation of recruitment operations from Russian prisons, as he put it.

Commenting on the White House's announcement that Washington would categorize the Wagner Group as a transnational criminal organization, Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin responded sarcastically to a Reuters question, saying, "Finally, the Wagner private military company and the Americans are colleagues. From now on, our relationship can be called settling scores for criminal groups."

On the ground, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced the control of the town of Klichevka, 9 kilometers south of Bakhmut, in the Donetsk region, in eastern Ukraine.

Yesterday, the Russian Wagner Group announced its control of the town.