The United States and Germany are expected to officially announce today, Wednesday, their decision to provide Ukraine with "Abrams" and "Leopard" tanks, which are among the best in the world, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia is planning a new attack on his country.
An American official told Al-Jazeera that President Joe Biden will announce today the decision to supply Ukraine with Abrams tanks, and added that the White House has made its decision in this regard, explaining that after making this decision, the tanks will not be provided from the Pentagon's stocks, but will be contracted for.
The Associated Press also quoted US officials as saying that the American announcement of the Abrams tank deal will coincide with a German announcement regarding the Leopard 2 tanks, according to the Wall Street Journal.
However, American sources made it clear that the tanks would not be delivered immediately, because training Ukrainian soldiers on them would take months.
For its part, German news agency reported that German Chancellor Olaf Schultz agreed to supply Ukraine with Leopard tanks.
A member of the German Parliament's Defense Committee told Al-Jazeera that Berlin decided to send these tanks so that Ukraine could face pressure on the fronts.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius had said that countries that possess German Leopard tanks could supply Ukraine with them, explaining that his country would not object to that.
100 tanks for Ukraine
In the context, the American "ABC" network quoted a senior Ukrainian official as saying that 12 countries agreed to deliver 100 Leopard tanks to Ukraine as soon as they obtained Germany's approval.
The Ukrainian source said that the agreements were concluded with these countries in the meeting of the contact group on Ukraine that was held last Friday at the Ramstein base in Germany, noting that Britain's provision of "Challenger 2" tanks aims to encourage Berlin to provide Leopard tanks, and this matter has really helped.
Meanwhile, the German "RND" (ARD) network quoted a spokesman for the Leopard tank manufacturer that the company may deliver 139 Leopard tanks to Ukraine if the German government approves.
In the same context, Reuters said that Berlin had received an official request from Poland to re-export Leopard tanks to Ukraine
The network revealed that Berlin had prepared a military aid package for Ukraine worth 1.3 billion euros.
At a press conference in Berlin with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Russia is preparing for a long-term war and preparing to launch new attacks on Ukraine, which necessitates supplying Kyiv with more advanced weapons than Russian weapons in order to achieve victory. , as he put it.
For his part, Pistorius said that NATO should not be a party to the war with Russia.
Russia warns
On the other hand, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned on Tuesday that the delivery of German Leopard tanks to Kiev would leave an indelible mark on relations with Berlin.
Peskov said that these deliveries will not bring anything good for relations between Russia and Germany in the future.
Moscow has repeatedly said that supplying Western weapons to Ukraine will only prolong the current conflict.
New Russian attack
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Tuesday that Russia is planning a new attack on his country.
Zelinsky said that Russian forces are intensifying their attacks on the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region of the Donbass region (eastern Ukraine).
CNN has quoted US and Ukrainian officials as saying that Ukraine's Western allies are urging it to change its tactics in the months-long fighting around the city of Bakhmut and to prioritize, instead of the grinding war of attrition, a possible attack in the south by using a different method of fighting by taking advantage of New military equipment sent to it by the West and the United States.
It also quoted these officials as saying that this call comes amid indications that Russian President Vladimir Putin is considering taking a major step in the next few weeks to regain the initiative in the war.
Informed sources told the network that some senior Russian military officials have been heard in recent weeks discussing the possibility of trying to recapture the city of Kharkiv (northeast), which Ukrainian forces retook last September following a counterattack.
field developments
On the ground, the Ukrainian General Staff said on Tuesday that the Russian forces are advancing in the axes of Bakhmut and Avdiivka in the Donetsk region, despite the heavy losses they suffered.
The Ukrainian governor of Lugansk province, Serhiy Gaidai, said that the battles are raging in several axes, especially the Svatova-Kremina axis, adding that the Ukrainian forces have inflicted heavy losses on the Russian army, especially in the battles they waged to control the city of Solidar recently.
For its part, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that its forces continue offensive operations on the Donetsk axis, and a spokesman for it said that the Russian forces destroyed multiple Ukrainian artillery systems and eliminated more than 100 Ukrainian soldiers in one day in different axes.
In Kherson (south), a Ukrainian army spokesman told Al Jazeera that the Ukrainian forces had thwarted new Russian landing attempts on some of the islands on the Dnipro River.
He added that the Ukrainian forces are preparing to hit the Russian positions on the eastern bank of the river more effectively, expecting an intensification of artillery battles and an increase in the frequency of Russian bombardment of Kherson in the coming days.