Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the fighting in Ukraine showed that his country's air defense systems are among the best in the world, at a time when the United States and Germany are expected to officially announce today, Wednesday, their decision to supply Ukraine with the Abrams and Leopard tanks. leopard).
Putin stated - during a meeting he held with the governor of the Russian border province of Belgorod with Ukraine - that Moscow produces more than Washington's air defense missiles similar to the American Patriot systems.
And he stated that with regard to multi-purpose air defense missiles, Russian production can be compared to the entire global production.
He pointed out that everything is possible except that these systems are working perfectly.
In a related context, Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and deputy head of the National Security Council, denied that the army had run out of missiles and artillery, saying that his country's stocks of weapons were sufficient to continue fighting in Ukraine.
Medvedev: Russia's stockpiles of weapons are enough to continue fighting in Ukraine (Getty Images)
Medvedev said during a visit to a factory that produces Kalashnikov rifles in the Izhevsk region, east of Moscow, "Our opponents monitor (the situation) and make statements periodically that we do not have this or that .. I want to disappoint them. We have enough of everything."
On the other hand, the Russian Ministry of Defense said today that the frigate "Admiral Gorshkov" had tested firing "Zircon" missiles with a range of more than 900 km in the Atlantic Ocean.
Tanks file
An American official told Al-Jazeera that President Joe Biden may 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 announcement of the Abrams tank deal will coincide with a German announcement regarding the Leopard-2 tanks, according to what was reported by the Wall Street Journal.
However, CNN quoted US officials as saying that the tanks would not be delivered immediately, because training Ukrainian soldiers on them would take months.
The German news agency also reported that the country's chancellor, Olaf Schultz, agreed to supply Ukraine with Leopard tanks, and a member of the parliament's defense committee told Al Jazeera that Berlin had 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 Leopard tanks could supply Ukraine with them, explaining that his country would not object to that.
Yesterday, Norwegian newspapers reported that Oslo is considering sending a number of "Leopard-2" tanks owned by the Norwegian army to Ukraine.
Russian ambassador
Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov stated that there is no doubt that if a decision is made to deliver the Abrams tanks to Kyiv, the Russian army will destroy them in the same way as it destroyed all other samples of NATO equipment and weapons in Ukraine.
Antonov said - in press statements - that the analysis of all Washington's activities shows that the United States "is constantly raising the level of military assistance to its clients, especially when the Russian armed forces have the upper hand in the conflict."
In Switzerland, a committee in Parliament voted yesterday in favor of a proposal that would allow a request to amend the Neutrality Act to allow the export of weapons to Ukraine through other countries.
Geneva has so far refused to allow countries that possess Swiss-made weapons to re-export them to Ukraine in line with its military neutrality.
In a separate context, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, informed the European Parliament yesterday that an inspection of the Ukrainian nuclear plants did not result in finding any military equipment, in contrast to what Moscow claimed.
Grossi's denial came a day after Russia's foreign intelligence service accused Ukraine of storing Western weapons in nuclear power plants across the country.
field developments
The Ukrainian General Staff said that the Russians are continuing the secret mobilization of their forces in the Crimea, and that the military commissariats in the city of Sevastopol, the largest city in Crimea, have been assigned to carry out the mobilization operations.
She added that the Russian army carried out 26 air raids and more than 100 missile launches during the past day on several provinces, especially Kherson and Zaporizhia in the south of the country, targeting more than 40 regions.
Yesterday, the General Staff stated that the Russian forces are advancing in the axes of Bakhmut and Avdiivka in Donetsk province, in the east of the country, despite the heavy losses they suffered.
On the other hand, the Ukrainian authority confirmed that its air forces continued to launch raids on sites where Russian forces and their missile systems were concentrated.
It indicated that its forces destroyed, during the past hours, several combat aircraft, in addition to 3 marches, 9 areas where personnel and equipment gather, and a control point.
For its part, Ukrainian intelligence said that 12 Russian soldiers were killed in a special operation carried out by its unit in the "Nova Kakhovka" area, which is controlled by Russian forces in Kherson.