The US and Germany decided to supply combat vehicles to Ukraine on Thursday (local time), CNN reported as Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his country’s most modern warships.
Washington: The US and Germany decided to supply combat vehicles to Ukraine on Thursday (local time), as Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly sent his country’s most modern warships from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean and Indian Oceans, CNN reported.
The US will supply Ukraine with Bradley fighting vehicles, while Germany said it will supply Marder infantry fighting vehicles and Patriot air defense batteries. Germany has decided to provide Ukraine with Marder infantry fighting vehicles and additional Patriot air defense batteries, German Ambassador to the US Emily Haber said.
“Germany to supply Marder infantry fighting vehicles to #Ukraine[?]. We will join the US in providing additional Patriot air defense batteries,” she wrote on Twitter.
The Marder is an infantry fighting vehicle used by the German Army since the early 1970s but constantly upgraded. The German military is in the process of phasing out the vehicle, with hundreds still in service.
An infantry fighting vehicle is a heavily armored armored vehicle used to move soldiers around the battlefield. It is usually deployed with main battle tanks.
Meanwhile, the United States will provide Ukraine with Bradley fighting vehicles as part of a new security assistance package to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion, CNN reported.
The nearly USD 3 billion packages are among the largest packages of military equipment sent to Ukraine by the Pentagon since the start of the war. It comes as Ukraine prepares for intense fighting as the weather warms in the spring.
US President Joe Biden confirmed the new commitment in a telephone call with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday, CNN reported.
The new security package comes as Russia steps up attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who visited the White House last month, has called for additional help from Western nations to defend against Russian aggression. He said the support was not “charity” but an investment in Russian warships equipped with “Zircon hypersonic missiles, long-range warheads that travel five times the speed of sound and are difficult to detect and intercept,” CNN reported.
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The frigate Admiral Gorshkov departed an undisclosed northern Russian port on Wednesday after Putin spoke via video link with the ship’s commander and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, the TASS news agency reported.
Russia tested the Zircon system in late 2021, firing from the Admiral Gorshkov in the White Sea and hitting a naval target more than 400 kilometers (250 mi) away, according to reports at the time.
The current mission will be its first deployment in a potential combat situation.
However, Putin has called for a temporary ceasefire, ordering his defense minister to enforce a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine for 36 hours this week to allow Orthodox Christians to attend Christmas services, according to a Kremlin statement on Thursday.
Putin’s order came after the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, called for a ceasefire between January 6 and January 7, when many Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas.
But Ukraine and the US dismissed it as a cynical ploy. Zelensky said Moscow wants to use the Orthodox Christmas holiday as “cover” to resupply, CNN reported.
During his nightly address, Zelensky said Russia aims to use Orthodox Christmas “as cover” to resupply and halt Ukrainian advances in the eastern Donbass region.
“What will this achieve? Another rise in the death toll,” he added.
Putin told his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that Moscow was open to “serious dialogue” regarding Ukraine, but that Kiev must accept “new regional realities.”
Erdogan, who has positioned himself as a broker in the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022, held separate phone calls with both Presidents Putin and Zelensky on Thursday.
Zelensky said he and Erdogan discussed “security cooperation” between their two countries and “nuclear security issues, particularly the situation at the ZNPP (Zaporiziya Nuclear Power Station).”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by HW News staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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