Ukraine has received guarantees from three European nations that it will get at least 100 tanks in the "coming months." The German defence minister unexpectedly travelled to Kiev at the time of this.
The German, Dutch, and Danish defence ministries committed to train and support the Leopard 1 tanks in addition to vowing to deploy more advanced battle tanks in the future.
When Ukraine claimed that the last 24 hours of the fighting had been the deadliest for Russian military, the promise was made on Tuesday. Moscow intensified its winter offensive in the east, adding tens of thousands of fresh soldiers to the fray.
The Ukrainian military increased its tally of Russian military fatalities by 1,030 over the course of one night, bringing it to 133,190. It was not possible to independently confirm the Ukrainian government's claim that this was the Russians' highest daily death toll.
Additionally, Russia claimed to have killed numerous Ukrainian soldiers in recent weeks. It stated that 6,500 Ukrainians had been murdered in January.
The assertion that the fighting was the deadliest so far is consistent with what both sides have reported about an intensifying campaign of close-contact trench warfare that has strewn bodies all over the battlefields in eastern Ukraine's snowy regions.
30 kilometres (18.6 miles) west of the eastern city of Donetsk, a marine unit of the Ukrainian military launched rockets against Russian forces close to the village of Maryinka using a launcher from the Soviet era.
“They storm in small infantry groups, trying to creep in farther and farther,” a soldier named Ievhen told the news agency Reuters. “Even without the previous artillery strikes [on Ukrainian positions], they’re infantry attempts to move in.”
“The enemy adapted quite well,” he said. “They learn as fast as we do. They have adopted different kinds of tactics.”
Kyiv and the West say that Russia has been sending troops and mercenaries into eastern Ukraine over the past few weeks to make new gains before the first anniversary of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine this month.
A lieutenant in the Ukrainian unit named Volodymyr said, “The targets are given to us either by drone operators or by our spotters. They observe where our rockets explode. Then we correct our fire direction and launch again.”
The war is about to enter its second year at a crucial point. Moscow is trying to regain the upper hand, while Kyiv is waiting for Western tanks to launch a counterattack later in 2023.
Moscow is now making full use of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers it called up in its first mobilisation since World War II after Russia failed to conquer the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv last year and lost territory in the second half of 2022.
Russia has made its first gains in months in the past few weeks. But the progress has been slow, and even though thousands of people have died, Moscow hasn’t taken control of a single major population centre in its winter campaign.
For months, the fighting has been centred around the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk province, held by the Ukrainians. Before the war, about 75,000 people lived there. Russia has made clear progress towards surrounding it from the north and the south, but Kyiv says its garrison is holding firm.
Moscow has also started an attack on Vuhledar, a stronghold in Donetsk province held by the Ukrainians. It is on high ground at a strategic point where the eastern and southern front lines meet.
Since the start of the year, the west has promised Ukraine hundreds of tanks and armoured vehicles to give it the firepower and mobility it needs to break through Russian lines and retake occupied territory later this year.
A new package of weapons from the US is likely to include rockets with a longer range. This would allow Ukraine to hit Russian supply lines in all of the parts of Ukraine that Russia controls, including parts of the Crimean Peninsula.
On Tuesday, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands said that at least 100 Leopard 1 A5 tanks would be sent “in the coming months” from industrial stock.
Germany’s new defence minister, Boris Pistorius, made an unplanned trip to Ukraine two weeks after Berlin agreed to give Ukraine tanks to help it fight Russian forces. This came after Kyiv and many of Berlin’s European allies put much pressure on Berlin.
Berlin has also promised Kyiv 14 Leopard 2 tanks, which are newer.
But it will probably be months before most of the promised weapons show up, and in the meantime, Ukraine has to deal with a Russian army that is getting more people by calling up reservists. The Kremlin says that sending weapons from the west would only worsen the war and last longer.
In a Tuesday conference call with military officials, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said, “The US and its allies are trying to prolong the conflict as much as possible.”
“To do this, they have started supplying heavy offensive weapons, openly urging Ukraine to seize our territories,” he said. “In fact, such steps are dragging NATO countries into the conflict and could lead to an unpredictable level of escalation.”
When he said “our territories,” it sounded like he was talking about the four Ukrainian provinces that Russia took over unilaterally last year and still occupies in part, as well as Crimea, which it took from Ukraine in 2014. All these areas are considered part of Ukraine by the rest of the world.
In a daily intelligence report, the British Ministry of Defense said that since early January, Russia’s military has been trying to restart primary offensive operations to take over parts of the Donetsk region held by Ukraine. However, Russia hasn’t made much progress so far.
It said that the Russians don’t have the weapons and units that can move that are needed for a successful offensive.
Officials in Ukraine say that Moscow could be stockpiling weapons and supplies for a more significant push in the next few weeks. The governor of the Ukrainian province of Luhansk noted that a big Russian attack could start there on February 15.
On the political front, Ukrainian officials have been fired in the last few weeks as part of a campaign against corruption. This is the first significant change in Ukraine’s government since the war started.
In a speech on Monday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that changes in personnel on the country’s borders and front lines would help the military.
But he didn’t say anything about what would happen to Oleksii Reznikov, his defence minister. On Sunday, the head of Zelenskyy’s party in parliament said Reznikov would be replaced. However, he said there would be no changes this week on Monday.