Nato countries are set to announce new heavier weapons for Ukraine, the alliance’s chief said, as President Vladimir Putin vowed an “inevitable” victory for Russia. Putin, visiting an air defence factory in St Petersburg on Wednesday, said Russia’s military industrial might meant “victory is assured, I have no doubt about it”. Putin’s comments came as top military leaders from around the world prepared to gather in Germany to discuss how to help Kyiv in its fight against Russia. US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin will convene a meeting of around 50 countries on Friday at the US-run Ramstein military base in Germany, including all 30 members of the Nato alliance. “The main message there (in Ramstein) will be more support and more advanced support, heavier weapons, and more modern weapons, because this is a fight for our values,” Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg told the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday. Many of Ukraine’s allies have announced plans to step up their military support to Kyiv this month despite the risk of antagonising Russia, notably Britain, which became the first Western nation to pledge heavy tanks on Saturday. Some at Miss Universe didn’t know there was a war, Miss Ukraine says The United States has promised to send its powerful Bradley armoured fighting vehicles, while France has offered its highly mobile AMX-10 RCs – offensive weapons long seen as off-limits by hesitant Western nations. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has pleaded for modern, Western-designed heavy tanks, which analysts say are crucial to the ongoing battle in eastern Ukraine, where heavy armour is needed to punch through entrenched defensive lines. Zelensky issued a “call for speed” in a barely veiled reference to Germany where Chancellor Olaf Scholz is weighing whether to greenlight the export of its highly regarded Leopard tanks. “The time the Free World uses to think is used by the terrorist state to kill,” Zelensky told delegates in Davos. He referred to “three minutes on January 14, the time it took for a Russian missile to travel hundreds of kilometres to hit a residential block in Dnipro, and killing at least 45 people”. “The world must not hesitate today or ever,” Zelensky added. Leaders and ministers from Finland, Lithuania, Poland and Britain have added their voices in recent days to a growing clamour for Berlin to approve the export of Leopards to Ukraine. After several meetings in Davos, where a large Ukrainian delegation has been lobbying all week, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said that he had “very good and positive signals” that new weapons would be announced for Ukraine on Friday. Also speaking Wednesday, Scholz defended Berlin’s record as a military supplier to Ukraine, telling delegates in Davos that his country was third behind the US and Britain. Ukraine interior minister among 18 killed in helicopter crash The 64-year-old, who heads a tricky multiparty ruling coalition, dodged a direct question about Leopards and criticism of his perceived dawdling. “We are never doing something just by ourselves but together with others, especially the United States,” he said, while reminding listeners that German arms such as the Iris-T air defence systems were playing a key role in defending Ukraine. The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper later reported that Scholz was prepared to deliver Leopard tanks, but on one condition. “In a telephone conversation with US President Joe Biden on Tuesday, Scholz made it clear that Germany could only give in to the pressure to deliver if the US delivered Abrams battle tanks,” the newspaper reported, without naming its sources. The US was not expected to sign off on American M1 Abrams tanks, however. “I just don’t think we’re there yet,” said Colin Kahl, the Pentagon’s top policy adviser who had just returned from a trip to Ukraine. “The Abrams tank is a very complicated piece of equipment. It’s expensive. It’s hard to train on. It has a jet engine.” Henry Kissinger softens stance on Ukraine joining Nato Ukraine has relied primarily on Soviet-era T-72 tank variants. Fighting has been concentrated in the south and east of Ukraine, after Russia’s initial assault from the north aimed at taking Kyiv was thwarted during the first months of an invasion. In Russia on Wednesday, during a visit to his home city of St Petersburg, Putin once again defended the war on Ukraine as a fight against “neo-Nazis”. He also met World War II veterans. He accused the leadership in Kyiv of hero-worshipping Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera (1909-1959), who helped Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. “Therefore, we have every reason to call the current Ukrainian rulers neo-Nazi,” Putin said at the event marking the 80th anniversary of the breaking of the siege of German troops in Leningrad, as St Petersburg was formerly called. Earlier, there was speculation that Putin would announce a second wave of mobilisation for war against Ukraine in the coming days. Lavrov says West’s approach to Russia is like Hitler’s ‘final solution’ The US Institute for the Study of War (ISW) speculated – citing Russian bloggers – that Putin could soon officially declare war on Ukraine. So far, the Russian invasion has been described within domestic official circles as a “special military operation,” while the use of the term “war” is forbidden and punishable under Russian criminal law. Ukrainian and Western intelligence services have repeatedly warned of Putin’s plans for a second mobilisation in mid-January, the report added. Against the backdrop of the Ukraine war, Putin announced shortly before New Year’s Eve that the number of soldiers would increase from 1.15 million to 1.5 million. Agence France-Presse, dpa and Reuters
