Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: CHRISTOF STACHE / AFP 15:17 pm, September 26, 2023

While Volodymyr Zelensky announced the arrival of the first American Abrams tanks in Ukraine, the Kremlin has, for its part, promised that they will "burn". According to the spokesman of the Russian presidency, Dmitry Peskov, "the Americans continue to increase their direct involvement in this conflict" through these new deliveries to Kiev.

The American Abrams tanks delivered to Kiev "will burn", promised Tuesday the Kremlin, ensuring that their arrival on the battlefield "would not change the balance of forces" between the Russian and Ukrainian armies. "Abrams tanks are serious weapons," Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "They will burn too," he told reporters, echoing Russian President Vladimir Putin's warning at the time of the delivery of the first Leopard tanks to Ukraine.

A delivery that does not worry Russia

"All this can in no way affect the essence of the special military operation," nor "its result," Peskov said. And to add: "There is no (...) a type of weapon that can change the balance of power on the battlefield." According to him, through these new deliveries to Kiev, "the Americans continue to increase their direct involvement in this conflict", but the Russian army nevertheless manages to "counter" the attacks of the Ukrainian army.

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Kiev's forces launched a counter-offensive last June aimed at pushing the Russian army beyond the occupied territories. But Moscow's troops rely on powerful fortified lines, made of vast minefields, trenches and hard-to-pierce anti-tank booby-traps. At this stage, the Ukrainian army has been able to retake only a handful of villages, but in recent weeks it has increased pressure on the southern front, as colder temperatures approach, less conducive to attack.