Love Star Wars? Hate Vladimir Putin? Then there’s good news as Luke Skywalker is to start selling signed posters to raise cash for maintaining the Ukrainian army’s drone supply.
“We decided to sign Star Wars posters, a limited amount,” Mark Hamill, the actor who played Skywalker in the iconic movies, told POLITICO in an exclusive interview. “For real hardcore collectors — especially those that have disposable income — you can get way more money … than you would imagine.”
Exactly how the posters will be put up for sale is yet to be finalized, but the idea of “having hundreds and thousands of people enter [a competition or auction], that’s smart,” Hamill said.
The poster sale is expected to start next week and comes ahead of the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine on February 24, with Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov saying Russia is planning a major offensive.
This really is the return of the Jedi — Hamill revealed he hasn’t sold autographed items since 2017, when “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” came out. “It’s just not something I do,” he said, adding that he is happy to do it to support Ukraine, whose ongoing fight against Russia is “nothing short of inspirational.”
Hamill said that something he learned from the world(s) of Star Wars is doing the “right thing for the good of everyone, rather than being all about self-interest,” adding that comparing the two worlds shouldn’t trivialize “the true horrors of what Ukrainians face.”
“One is really a fairy tale for children, originally that’s what Star Wars was. And the reality, the stark reality of what’s going on in Ukraine, is harrowing.”
Ukrainian servicemen fly a drone on the outskirts of Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine | Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP via Getty Images
The money raised from the sale of the posters will go to the Ukrainian fundraising platform United24. Hamill became an ambassador for the platform’s “Army of Drones” project in September after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy personally asked him to join the fight against “the empire of evil,” as he labeled Russia — a reference to the Galactic Empire, the brutal dictatorship led by evil Palpatine in the Star Wars saga.
The actor says he is “thrilled” that the fundraising project has evolved to this “massive, worldwide event,” saying that “anything I can do, however small it is, is something I feel obligated to do.”
The “Army of Drones” involves drone procurement, maintenance and training, as the drones are used to monitor the frontline, according to the project’s website. “Drones are so vital in this conflict. They are the eyes in the sky. They protect the border, they monitor,” Hamill said.
The project is a joint venture between the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Ministry of Digital Transformation and United24. The latter was set up by Zelenskyy and has so far raised more than €252 million.
Other celebrities — including the band Imagine Dragons and the singer and actress Barbra Streisand — have also been named ambassadors for the platform.
“The light will win over darkness. I believe in this, our people believe in this,” Zelenskyy told Hamill during a video call last year, thanking him for supporting the Ukrainian people.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct the amount of money raised by United24.
PARIS — Vladimir Putin is a “radically rational” leader who is betting that Western countries will grow tired of backing Ukraine and agree a negotiated end to the conflict that will be favorable to Russia, former French President François Hollande told POLITICO.
Hollande, who served from 2012 to 2017, has plenty of first-hand experience with Putin. He led negotiations with the Russian leader, along with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, under the so-called Normandy format in 2014 after Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine and supported pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region.
But those efforts at dialogue proved fruitless, exposing Putin as a leader who only understands strength and casting doubt on all later attempts at talks — including a controversial solo effort led by current French President Emmanuel Macron, Hollande said in an interview at his Paris office.
“He [Putin] is a radically rational person, or a rationally radical person, as you like,” said the former French leader, when asked if Putin could seek to widen the conflict beyond Ukraine. “He’s got his own reasoning and within that framework, he’s ready to use force. He’s only able to understand the [power] dynamic that we’re able to set up against him.”
Ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Hollande added that Putin would seek to “consolidate his gains to stabilize the conflict, hoping that public opinion will get tired and that Europeans will fear escalation in order to bring up at that stage the prospect of a negotiation.”
But unlike when he was in power and Paris and Berlin led talks with Putin, this time the job of mediating is likely to fall to Turkey or China — “which won’t be reassuring for anyone,” Hollande said.
Macron, who served as Hollande’s economy minister before leaving his government and going on to win the presidency in 2017, has tried his own hand at diplomacy with Russia, holding numerous one-on-one calls with Putin both before and after his invasion of Ukraine.
Hollande stopped short of criticizing his successor over the Putin outreach. It made sense to speak with Putin before the invasion to “deprive him of any arguments or pretexts,” he said. But after a “brief period of uncertainty” following the invasion, “the question [about the utility of dialogue] was unfortunately settled.”
Frustration with France and Germany’s leadership, or lack thereof, during the Ukraine war has bolstered arguments that power in Europe is moving eastward into the hands of countries like Poland, which have been most forthright in supporting Ukraine.
But Hollande wasn’t convinced, arguing that northern and eastern countries are casting in their lot with the United States at their own risk. “These countries, essentially the Baltics, the Scandinavians, are essentially tied to the United States. They see American protection as a shield.”
Former French President François Hollande | Antonio Cotrim/EFE via EPA
“Until today,” he continued, U.S. President Joe Biden has shown “exemplary solidarity and lived up to his role in the transatlantic alliance perfectly. But tomorrow, with a different American president and a more isolationist Congress, or at least less keen on spending, will the United States have the same attitude?”
“We must convince our partners that the European Union is about principles and political values. We should not deviate from them, but the partnership can also offer precious, and solid, security guarantees,” Hollande added.
Throwing shade
Hollande was one of France’s most unpopular presidents while in office, with approval ratings in the low single digits. But he has enjoyed something of a revival since leaving the Elysée and is now the country’s second-most popular politician behind former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, five spots ahead of Macron — in keeping with the adage that the French prefer their leaders when they are safely out of office.
His time in office was racked with crises. In addition to failed diplomacy over Ukraine, Hollande led France’s response to a series of terrorist attacks, presided over Europe’s sovereign debt crisis with Merkel, and faced massive street protests against labor reforms.
On that last point, Macron is now feeling some of the heat that Hollande felt during the last months of his presidency. More than a million French citizens have joined marches against a planned pension system reform, and further strikes are planned. Hollande criticized the reform plans, which would raise the age of retirement to 64, as poorly planned.
“Did the president choose the right time? Given the succession of crises and with elevated inflation, the French want to be reassured. Did the government propose the right reform? I don’t think so either — it’s seen as unfair and brutal,” said Hollande. “But now that a parliamentary process has been set into motion, the executive will have to strike a compromise or take the risk of going all the way and raising the level of anger.”
A notable difference between him and Macron is the quality of the Franco-German relationship. While Hollande and Merkel took pains to showcase a form of political friendship, the two sides have been plainly at odds under Macron — prompting a carefully-worded warning from the former commander-in-chief.
Former French President Francois Hollande with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel | Thierry Chesnot/Getty images
“In these moments when everything is being redefined, the Franco-German couple is the indispensable core that ensures the EU’s cohesion. But it needs to redefine the contributions of both parties and set new goals — including European defense,” said Hollande.
“It’s not about seeing one another more frequently, or speaking more plainly, but taking the new situation into account because if that work isn’t done, and if that political foundation isn’t secure, and if misunderstandings persist, it’s not just a bilateral disagreement between France and Germany that we’ll have, but a stalled European Union,” he said, adding that he “hoped” a recent Franco-German summit had “cleared up misunderstandings.”
The socialist leader also had some choice words for Macron over the way he’s trying to rally Europeans around a robust response to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which offers major subsidies to American green industry. Several EU countries have come out against plans, touted by Paris, to create a “Buy European Act” and raise new money to support EU industries.
During a joint press conference on Monday, Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte agreed to disagree on the EU’s response.
“On the IRA, France is discovering that its partners are, for the most part, liberal governments. When you tell the Dutch or the Scandinavians hear about direct aid [for companies], they hear something that goes against not just the spirit, but also the letter of the treaties,” Hollande said.
Another issue rattling European politics lately is the Qatargate corruption scandal, in which current and former MEPs as well as lobbyists are accused of taking cash in exchange for influencing the European Parliament’s work in favor of Qatar and Morocco.
Hollande recalled that his own administration had been hit by a scandal when his budget minister was found to be lying about Swiss bank accounts he’d failed to disclose from tax authorities. The scandal led to Hollande establishing the Haute autorité pour la transparence de la vie publique — an independent authority that audits public officials and has the power to refer any misdeeds to a prosecutor.
Now would be a good time for the EU to follow that example and establish an independent ethics body of its own, Hollande said.
“I think it’s a good institution that would have a role to play in Brussels,” he said. “Some countries will be totally in favor because integrity and transparency are part of their basic values. Others, like Poland and Hungary, will see a challenge to their sovereignty.”
As the Russia-Ukraine war enters its 342nd day, we take a look at the main developments.
Here is the situation as it stands on Tuesday, January 31, 2023:
Fighting
Russian missiles have killed three people in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, while fighting rages in the eastern Donetsk region where Russia again shelled the key town of Vuhledar, Ukrainian officials said.
Russia has moved additional forces and equipment to its western Kursk region on the border with Ukraine, according to the region’s governor.
Weapons:
President Emmanuel Macron has said France does not exclude sending fighter jets to Ukraine, provided such equipment will not be used “to touch Russian soil” or “weaken the capacities of the French army”.
Norway will send part of its fleet of German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine “as soon as possible”, perhaps by late March, its defence minister said.
Croatia’s president has criticised Western nations for supplying Ukraine with heavy tanks and other weapons, saying such arms deliveries will only prolong the war.
France and Australia have agreed to cooperate to manufacture “several thousand” 155mm shells to help Ukraine.
Tanks provided by the United Kingdom to Ukraine will be on the front line before summer, defence minister Ben Wallace said.
Ukraine’s military will spend nearly $550m on drones this year, and 16 supply deals have already been signed with Ukrainian manufacturers, the defence minister said.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister says it is “quite possible” the New START nuclear arms control treaty with the United States would end after 2026.
Leopard 2 interactive (Al Jazeera)
Diplomacy:
Ukraine’s president says he met with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in the southern Ukrainian region of Mykolaiv and discussed the effect of Russian missile and drone strikes with regional officials.
Finland’s foreign minister says it is maintaining its plan to join NATO at the same time as Nordic neighbour Sweden despite a potential Turkish block on the latter’s bid.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has urged South Korea to increase military support to Ukraine, citing other countries that have changed their policy of not providing weapons to countries in conflict following Russia’s invasion.
The Kremlin has accused Boris Johnson of lying after the former British prime minister said President Vladimir Putin had threatened the United Kingdom with a missile attack during a phone call in the run-up to the invasion of Ukraine.
Iran has summoned Ukraine’s charge d’affaires in Tehran over comments by a Ukrainian official on a drone attack on a military factory in the central Iranian province of Isfahan, according to the semiofficial Tasnim news agency.
Senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi is set to visit Moscow in February, Russia’s Vedomosti newspaper says, citing two sources.
A former Wagner mercenary says the brutality he witnessed in Ukraine ultimately pushed him to defect, in an exclusive CNN interview on Monday.
Wagner fighters were often sent into battle with little direction, and the company’s treatment of reluctant recruits was ruthless, Andrei Medvedev told CNN’s Anderson Cooper from Norway’s capital Oslo, where he is seeking asylum after crossing that country’s arctic border from Russia.
“They would round up those who did not want to fight and shoot them in front of newcomers,” he alleges. “They brought two prisoners who refused to go fight and they shot them in front of everyone and buried them right in the trenches that were dug by the trainees.”
CNN has not been able to independently verify his account and Wagner has not replied to a request for comment.
The 26-year-old, who says he previously served in the Russian military, joined Wagner as a volunteer. He crossed into Ukraine less than ten days after signing his contract in July 2021, serving near Bakhmut, the frontline city in the Donetsk region. The mercenary group has emerged as a key player in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Medvedev said he reported directly to the group’s founders, Dmitry Utkin and Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin.
He refers to Prigozhin as “the devil.” If he was a Russian hero, he would have taken a gun and run with the soldiers,” Medvedev said.
Prigozhin has previously confirmed that Medvedev had served in his company, and said that he “should have been prosecuted for attempting to mistreat prisoners.”
Medvedev told CNN that he did not want to comment on what he’d done himself while fighting in Ukraine.
Wagner lacked a tactical strategy, with troops coming up with plans on the fly, Medvedev said.
“There were no real tactics at all. We just got orders about the position of the adversary…There were no definite orders about how we should behave. We just planned how we would go about it, step by step. Who would open fire, what kind of shifts we would have…How it how it how it would turn out that was our problem,” he said.
Medvedev spoke to CNN from Oslo after crossing its border in a daring defection that, he says saw him evade arrest “at least ten times” and dodge bullets from Russian forces. He crossed into Norway over an icy lake using white camouflage to blend in, he said.
He told CNN that he knew by the sixth day of his deployment in Ukraine that he did not want to return for another tour after witnessing troops being turned into cannon fodder.
He started off with 10 men under his command, a number that grew once prisoners were allowed to join, he said. “There were more dead bodies, and more, and more, people coming in. In the end I had a lot of people under my command,” he said. “I couldn’t count how many. They were in constant circulation. Dead bodies, more prisoners, more dead bodies, more prisoners.”
Advocacy groups say prisoners who enlisted were told their families would receive a pay-out of five million rubles ($71,000) if they died in the war.
But in reality “nobody wanted to pay that kind of money,” Medvedev said. He alleged that many Russians who died fighting in Ukraine were “just declared missing.”
Medvedev was emotional at times in the interview, telling CNN that he saw courage on both sides of the war.
“You know, I saw courage on both sides, on the Ukrainian side as well, and our boys too… I just want them to know that,” he said.
He added that he wants to now share his story in order to help bring Prigozhin and Russian President Vladimir Putin to justice.
“Sooner or later the propaganda in Russia will stop working, the people will rise up and all our leaders …will be up for grabs and a new leader will emerge.”
Wagner is often described as Putin’s off-the-books troops. It has expanded its footprint globally since its creation in 2014, and has been accused of war crimes in Africa, Syria and Ukraine.
When asked if he fears the fate meted on another Wagner defector, Yevgeny Nuzhin, who was murdered on camera with a sledgehammer, Medvedev said Nuzhin’s death emboldened him to leave.
“I would just say that it made me bolder, more determined to leave,” he said.
Bakhmut, Ukraine — Once home to 70,000 people, nearly a year of war has left Bakhmut a hollowed out shell. The sound of artillery is constant, and the Ukrainian city has been decimated and deserted, barring a few people trying to eke out some kind of living.
Khartia battalion commander Seva Kozhemyako is among Ukraine’s forces trying to prevent Russia from seizing Bakhmut. In underground hi-tech command centers, his soldiers — some of whom are former gamers and IT workers — use inexpensive drones to stream live video from the frontline, revealing it in astounding detail.
The drones show dead Russian soldiers and shattered backyards, where Russian troops have been seen crawling for cover.
Artillery units also monitor the battlefield in real time and are guided by information collected from the drones.
“As soon as they see the enemy there or the tanks, they just start to shoot,” said Kozhemyako of the artillery units. “We call them and say, ‘Please, correct your fire.'”
In the eastern part of the city, Russians throw wave after wave of troops into the fight.
“They keep on advancing over their fallen soldiers,” said third operative battalion commander Anton Zadorozhny.
When one group is destroyed, another comes. Then at night, they collect the bodies.
The men behind the drones work, sleep and eat in the underground command center in shifts, making sure that on the blood-soaked battlefields just a few blocks away, Bakhmut still holds.
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It has been two years since a major wave of street protests provoked by the arrest of opposition leader Alexey Navalny hit Russia. To many, the events of January and February 2021 may seem unrelated to the war in Ukraine, but they are, in fact, closely linked.
Let us remember how this story unfolded. In August 2020, Navalny suffered a near-lethal poisoning, which landed him in a German hospital. An investigation by Bellingcat and Der Spiegel established with a high level of certainty that he was poisoned by Russian secret service operatives.
Having barely recovered from the poisoning, Navalny surprised many by returning to Russia five months later. He was apprehended at the airport and has been in jail ever since.
In the following weeks, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in 185 cities across the country, calling for the opposition leader’s release. According to OVD-Info, a group monitoring political repression in Russia, more than 11,000 people were arrested, dozens were injured and about 90 people faced criminal charges.
President Vladimir Putin’s main dark art, which has helped him stay in power for so long, is that of shifting public attention away from domestic troubles. Less than two months after the Navalny protests were suppressed, he ordered the deployment of a massive force at the Russian border with Ukraine in what became a prelude to the full-scale invasion of this country a year later.
These two themes – Russia’s internal instability and the war in Ukraine – are fundamentally interlinked. By waging a war in Ukraine, Putin is avoiding confrontation with his own population and keeping the opposition at bay. He has essentially outsourced his domestic conflict to Russia’s neighbour Ukraine.
Domestic unrest was certainly not the only reason why Putin started preparing for the invasion. That same fateful month, which saw Joe Biden enter the White House, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a drastic change of tack in his Russia policy.
He launched an attack on Putin’s chief ally in Ukraine, Viktor Medvedchuk, whose party climbed to the top of opinion polls in December 2020. Simultaneously, he initiated much-publicised campaigns for joining NATO and doing away with the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project.
With Medvedchuk still in the game, Putin could have safely counted on the political environment in Ukraine gradually changing in the way that was conducive to his political goals of ending the conflict in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas on his terms. But the forceful removal of his ally from the political scene and the destruction of his increasingly influential media empire made this impossible, prompting the Russian president to resort to a more drastic line of action.
Yet it is on the domestic front where Putin has achieved the most by triggering an escalation in Ukraine. Rising tensions served as a smokescreen for the ultimate destruction of Navalny’s movement and the Russian opposition.
There is a perverse logic to the Kremlin’s actions if you look at the events from its vantage point. Putin and his entourage genuinely believe that Navalny and his supporters are paid agents of the West intent on staging a Russian version of the Maidan protests.
Russia’s initial attack on Ukraine in 2014 was a way of punishing it for its Maidan revolution but, even more importantly, of showing the Russian public what they would face if they followed the Ukrainian example.
The 2014 invasion allowed Putin to quash what remained of the Bolotnaya protest movement, which rocked Moscow in 2011 and 2012. But the relatively calm years following the hot phase of the war in Ukraine in 2014 and 2015 saw public attention in Russia shift again to domestic grievances.
In 2017 and 2018, opinion pollsters started picking up a dramatic shift in public sentiment: The demand for stability was diminishing in favour of political change. In 2018, a Levada Centre poll showed 57 percent of respondents believed “full-scale changes” were needed in the country. This figure rose to 59 percent the following year.
That was also the time when Navalny launched his presidential campaign and set up the largest opposition network in recent history, opening offices in most regions of the country. Fearful of his movement and its Maidan potential, the Kremlin first knocked Navalny out of the presidential race on a made-up pretext and then tried to poison him.
The escalation and eventual full-scale invasion of Ukraine, allowed Putin to do away with the Russian opposition and remove the threat to his regime. This was reflected in opinion polls as well. The share of Russians hoping for change fell to 47 percent in 2022 in Levada’s poll.
Today, Navalny is lingering in jail where he is being treated in a way that borders on outright torture. Every other major opposition politician is either jailed, under house arrest or in exile. Hundreds of thousands of anti-Putin Russians have fled the country, including pretty much all independent journalists and most civil society activists.
As a result, Putin’s political regime appears to be more stable than ever – even if it loses the war in Ukraine at the end of the day. There is nothing more stable than an isolated authoritarian regime under Western sanctions. Iran, Cuba and North Korea are a testament to that.
A hostile, isolated Russia is also good for the war hawks in the West and in Eastern Europe promoting hardline policies and militarisation. Meanwhile, pro-Ukrainian infowar groups and hawkish commentators in the West are bashing the Russian opposition with even greater fervour than Putin’s regime while also calling for the breakup of Russia.
There is a steep learning curve ahead for Russian leaders and activists before they formulate their (as well as Russia’s) genuine interests and learn to tell friends from foes in the political terrarium of the visionless and disoriented West of the Trump and Brexit epoch. Western ambiguity on Russia’s future does not help when it comes to promoting anti-Putin sentiments in Russia.
That explains why the main figures in Navalny’s movement are keeping a fairly low profile in Western media while focusing on developing a propaganda machine to reach out to audiences in Russia, mostly via YouTube. They are also attempting to relaunch the movement’s regional network, but we won’t hear much about the progress for some time, given that these days activist can only operate in clandestine mode.
In the meantime, with the war raging, Putin can consider himself fairly Maidan-proof.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has a tight two-year timetable for securing EU membership that is bound to dominate discussions at this week’s historic EU-Ukraine summit, the first to take place on Ukrainian soil.
The problem? No one within the EU thinks this is realistic.
When EU commissioners travel to Kyiv later this week ahead of Friday’s summit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the heads of the European Commission and Council, their main task is likely to involve managing expectations.
Shmyhal himself is imposing a tough deadline. “We have a very ambitious plan to join the European Union within the next two years,” he told POLITICO. “So we expect that this year, in 2023, we can already have this pre-entry stage of negotiations,” he said.
This throws down a gauntlet to the EU establishment, which is trying to keep Ukrainian membership as a far more remote concept.
French President Emmanuel Macron said last year it could be “decades” before Ukraine joins. Even EU leaders, who backed granting Ukraine candidate status at their summit last June, privately admit that the prospect of the country actually joining is quite some years away (and may be one reason they backed the idea in the first place.) After all, candidate countries like Serbia, Turkey and Montenegro have been waiting for many years, since 1999 in Ankara’s case.
Ukraine is a conundrum for the EU. Many argue that Brussels has a particular responsibility to Kyiv. It was, after all, Ukrainians’ fury at the decision of President Viktor Yanukovych to pull out of a political and economic association agreement with the EU at Russia’s behest that triggered the Maidan uprising of 2014 and set the stage for war. As European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen put it: Ukraine is “the only country where people got shot because they wrapped themselves in a European flag.”
Ukraine’s close allies in the EU such as Poland and the Baltic countries strongly support Kyiv’s membership push, seeing it as a democracy resisting an aggressor. Many of the EU old guard are far more wary, however, as Ukraine — a global agricultural superpower — could dilute their own powers and perks. Ukraine and Poland — with a combined population of 80 million — could team up to rival Germany as a political force in the European Council and some argue Kyiv would be an excessive drain on the EU budget.
Short-term deliverables
Friday’s summit in Kyiv — the first EU meeting of its kind to take place in an active war zone — will be about striking the right balance.
Though EU national leaders will not be in attendance, European Council officials have been busy liaising with EU member states about the final communiqué.
Some countries are insisting the statement should not stray far from the language used at the June European Council — emphasizing that while the future of Ukraine lies within the European Union, aspirant countries need to meet specific criteria. “Expectation is quite high in Kyiv, but there is a need to fulfill all the conditions that the Commission has set out. It’s a merit-based process,” said one senior EU official.
Ukraine is a conundrum for the EU. Many argue that Brussels has a particular responsibility to Kyiv | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
Still, progress is expected when Zelenskyy meets with von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel.
Shmyhal told POLITICO he hopes Ukraine can achieve a “substantial leap forward” on Friday, particularly in specific areas — an agreement on a visa-free regime for industrial goods; the suspension of customs duties on Ukrainian exports for another year; and “active progress” on joining the SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) payments scheme and the inclusion of Ukraine into the EU’s mobile roaming area.
“We expect progress and acceleration on our path towards signing these agreements,” he said.
Anti-corruption campaign
The hot topic — and one of the central question marks over Ukraine’s EU accession — will be Ukraine’s struggle against corruption. The deputy infrastructure minister was fired and deputy foreign minister stepped down this month over scandals related to war profiteering in public contracts.
“We need a reformed Ukraine,” said one senior EU official centrally involved in preparations for the summit. “We cannot have the same Ukraine as before the war.”
Shmyhal insisted that the Zelenskyy government is taking corruption seriously. “We have a zero-tolerance approach to corruption,” he said, pointing to the “lightning speed” with which officials were removed this month. “Unfortunately, corruption was not born yesterday, but we are certain that we will uproot corruption,” he said, openly saying that it’s key to the country’s EU accession path.
He also said the government was poised to revise its recent legislation on the country’s Constitutional Court to meet the demands of both the European Commission and the Venice Commission, an advisory body of the Council of Europe. Changes could come as early as this week, ahead of the summit, Shmyhal said.
Though Ukraine has announced a reform of the Constitutional Court, particularly on how judges are appointed, the Venice Commission still has concerns about the powers and composition of the advisory group of experts, the body which selects candidates for the court. The goal is to avoid political interference.
Shmyhal said these questions will be addressed. “We are holding consultations with the European Commission to see that all issued conclusions may be incorporated into the text,” he told POLITICO.
Nonetheless, the symbolic power of this week’s summit is expected to send a strong message to Moscow about Ukraine’s European aspirations.
European Council President Michel used his surprise visit to Kyiv this month to reassure Ukraine that EU membership will be a reality for Ukraine, telling the Ukrainian Rada (parliament) that he dreams that one day a Ukrainian will hold his job as president of the European Council.
“Ukraine is the EU and the EU is Ukraine,” he said. “We must spare no effort to turn this promise into reality as fast as we can.”
The key question for Ukrainians after Friday’s meeting will be how fast the rhetoric and promises can become a reality.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the tiny island country of Cyprus has been a destination for Russian oligarchs looking to hide their wealth. But with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, officials are working to seize those assets.
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Western countries will deliver 321 tanks to Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s ambassador to France.
“As of today, numerous countries have officially confirmed their agreement to deliver 321 heavy tanks to Ukraine,” Vadym Omelchenko said in an interview with French TV station and CNN affiliate BFM television on Friday.
He did not specify which countries would provide the tanks or provide a breakdown of which models.
The figure from Omelchenko comes after the US this week pledged to provide 31 M1 Abrams tanks and Germany agreed to send 14 Leopard 2 A6s. Previously the United Kingdom has pledged 14 Challenger 2 tanks, while Poland has asked for approval from Germany to transfer some of its own German-made Leopard 2s to Ukraine.
Echoing the words of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has urged the West to provide what some experts see as game-changing military hardware, Omelchenko said that Ukraine needed assistance “as fast as possible”.
“If it had to wait until the month of August or September, it would be too late,” he said.
Delivery dates will vary depending on the type of tank and the country of origin, the ambassador said, and the timing would be adjusted during the next consultations between Ukraine and Western countries, he said.
Ukrainians forces have warned they are in a race against time. The country fears that a second Russian offensive may begin within two months and is bracing for the coming weeks.
Previous military aid, like the American HIMARS rocket system, has been vital in helping Ukraine disrupt Russian advances and make a series of successful counter-offensives in recent months.
But tanks represent the most powerful direct offensive weapon provided to Ukraine so far, military experts said.
This week, several Western nations led by Germany and the United States said they would send contingents of tanks to Ukraine.
US President Joe Biden said he would be providing 31 M1 Abrams tanks to “enhance Ukraine’s capacity to defend its territory and achieve its strategic objectives” in both the near and long terms.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in parliament on Wednesday said that his government would send 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, wrapping up months of deliberation and several days of tense negotiations with NATO partners.
“This is the result of intensive consultations that took place with Germany’s closest European and international partners,” a German government statement read.
Ukraine hopes that Berlin’s announcement will encourage other European nations who own Leopards to re-export some of their vehicles.
Hear what Kremlin threatens after Germans announce tanks
Poland on Tuesday formally asked for approval from Germany to transfer some of its German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
The United States and Germany have agreed to supply tanks to Ukraine after months of reluctance over fears of Russian escalation. CBS News senior White House and political correspondent Ed O’Keefe reports.
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Ukrainian captain Pavlo Cherniavskyi gave his medal of bravery to President Biden to thank him for supplying weapons to Ukraine, and received a command coin from the U.S. president in return. CBS News Foreign Correspondent Debora Patta sat down with Chernyavskyi and talked about the exchange.
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For the second time this month, House Republicans are seeking to restrict presidential use of the nation’s emergency oil stockpile — a proposal that has already drawn a White House veto threat.
A GOP bill set for a vote Friday would require the government to offset any non-emergency withdrawals from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve with new drilling on public lands and oceans. Republicans accuse President Joe Biden of abusing the reserve for political reasons to keep gas prices low, while Biden says tapping the reserve was needed last year in response to a ban on Russian oil imports following President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mr. Biden withdrew 180 million barrels from the strategic reserve over several months, bringing the stockpile to its lowest level since the 1980s. The administration said last month it will start to replenish the reserve now that oil prices have gone down.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre attacked the latest GOP proposal, which follows a bill approved two weeks ago that would prohibit the Energy Department from selling oil from the strategic reserve to companies owned or influenced by the Chinese Communist Party.
“House Republicans will vote to raise gas prices on American families … and help Putin’s war aims by interfering with our ability to release oil,” Jean-Pierre said, referring to the current GOP bill. “These extreme policies would subject working families to immense financial pain and balloon our deficit, all just to benefit the wealthiest taxpayers and big corporations.”
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, appearing with Jean-Pierre at the White House, said the bill would make it “harder to offer Americans relief in the future” from oil disruptions that could raise prices.
Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee and sponsored the GOP bill, accused Granholm and the White House of multiple misleading claims, including an erroneous assertion that the bill could affect use of the reserve during a presidentially declared emergency.
“At a time when gas prices are on the rise, Secretary Granholm and the Biden administration need to be transparent with the American people about their efforts to cover up how they’ve abused the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as an election-year gimmick,” McMorris Rodgers said.
“Republicans want durable, long-lasting relief at the pump. The best way to do this is by unleashing American energy,” which her legislation helps accomplish, added McMorris Rodgers, of Washington state.
Though the measure may pass in the Republican-controlled House, it’s not likely to reach the floor in the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats.
The heated rhetoric is part of a larger fight over oil drilling and climate change. Republicans say restrictions on oil leasing imposed by the Biden administration hamper U.S. energy production and harm the economy, while Democrats tout a sweeping climate law approved last year as a crucial step to wean the nation off fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas. The measure authorizes billions in spending to boost renewable energy such as wind and solar power and includes incentives for Americans to buy millions of electric cars, heat pumps, solar panels and more efficient appliances.
Mr. Biden, citing the dangers of climate change, canceled the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline in his first days in office and suspended new oil and gas leases on federal lands. The moratorium has since been lifted, under court order, but Republicans complain that lease sales for new drilling rights are still limited.
Mr. Biden campaigned on pledges to end new drilling on public lands, and climate activists have pushed him to move faster to shut down oil leasing. Fossil fuels extracted from public lands account for about 20% of energy-related U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, making them a prime target for emissions reductions intended to slow global warming.
“Whether on land or at sea, oil drilling poses an unacceptable risk for our wildlife, wild places and waterways,” said Lisa Frank of Environment America, an advocacy group. “When we drill, we spill. At a time when we should be moving away from this destructive, dangerous practice — and expanding use of renewable power — this bill doubles down on the outmoded energy of the past.”
Frank urged lawmakers to reject the GOP bill and instead move to permanently ban new drilling off U.S. coasts and in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Conservative and industry groups support the bill.
“We can continue making the Strategic Petroleum Reserve the nation’s sole response to future disruptions, or we can also utilize more of the vast oil supplies sitting beneath the lands and offshore areas currently kept off limits by the president,” the Competitive Enterprise Institute and other conservative groups said in a letter to Congress.
The Treasury Department estimates that release of oil from the emergency stockpile lowered prices at the pump by up to 40 cents per gallon. Gasoline prices averaged about $3.50 per gallon on Thursday, down from just over $5 per gallon at their peak in June, according to the AAA auto club.
Morris Rodgers accused Mr. Biden of using the reserve to “cover up his failed policies” that she said are driving up energy prices and inflation. Average gas prices are up more than 30 cents from a month ago and are higher than when Biden took office in January 2021, she and other Republicans noted.
“Millions of Americans are paying more at the pump as a result of the Biden administration’s radical ‘rush-to-green’ agenda that has shut down American energy,” McMorris Rodgers said.
Granholm, citing thousands of unused leases by oil companies, said GOP claims of obstructionism on drilling were off-base. “There’s nothing standing in the way of domestic oil and gas production,” she said, a claim McMorris Rodgers disputed.
“There are plenty of barriers to unleashing domestic oil and gas production, including burdensome regulations and this administration’s discouragement of financial investment in domestic oil and gas industries,” she said, noting that U.S. oil production is well below its 2019 peak of 13 million barrels of oil a day.
Russia launched a wave of new missile and drone attacks against Ukraine Thursday, killing at least 11 people, including one in the capital Kyiv, according to emergency officials, and targeting the country’s already-battered energy infrastructure. The strikes forced officials to switch off the electricity in a couple regions to cope with reduced capacity.
Air raid sirens wailed across the country Thursday morning heralding the latest strikes. Ukraine’s national emergency service agency said later that 11 people were killed and the same number wounded in the strikes, which came as Russia reacted to a landmark decision by U.S. President Joe Biden to supply Ukraine with modern, powerful M1 Abrams main battle tanks.
While the 31 American tanks won’t actually reach the battlefields of eastern Ukraine for months, given the need to train and equip Ukrainian forces to use the advanced hardware, the commitment from Mr. Biden came with a similar promise from Germany to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine — and to permit other European nations to send German-made Leopards from their stocks.
Hundreds of Leopard tanks are sitting in military bases across Europe, and they can be delivered to Ukraine on a shorter timescale than the Abrams.
Both the U.S. and Germany have said the aim is to give Ukrainian forces dozens of tanks, likely about 100, to enable them to punch through Russian front lines and retake occupied territory.
The question is whether the tanks can be deployed in time to help the country stave off a new Russian offensive expected in the coming weeks or months — or to lead the charge in a Ukrainian counteroffensive against Moscow.
Russia sent mixed signals in the wake of the Wednesday announcements by Washington and Berlin, playing down the strategic value of the Western military hardware to Ukraine, but also renewing warnings about the risks of the war growing into a wider regional conflict as NATO states increase their stake in the fight.
“There are constant statements from European capitals, from Washington, that the sending of various weapons systems, including tanks, to Ukraine in no way means the involvement of these countries or the alliance [NATO] in the hostilities that are taking place in Ukraine,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday. “We categorically disagree with this… everything that the alliance I mentioned and the capital [Washington] does is perceived as direct involvement in the conflict, and we see that it is growing.”
A senior Russian politician and ally of President Vladimir Putin cast a dire warning exactly one week ago of how Moscow might respond to a perceived military defeat in Ukraine.
“The defeat of a nuclear power in a conventional war can trigger a nuclear war,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of the Security Council, said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
It’s not clear exactly how long it will take European NATO countries to move Leopard 2 tanks into Ukraine in significant numbers and train the country’s forces to use them, but Germany’s leader said that training would begin on German soil within just days.
The battle over territory in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, more than half of which is occupied by Russian forces, has been grueling. Tank battles have played out for months, with Ukraine relying on its stocks of Soviet-era hardware.
Ukrainian troops ride a Soviet-era T-80 tank not far from Lyman, in the eastern Donetsk region, January 24, 2023, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP/Getty
CBS News national security analyst H.R. McMaster, a former U.S. national security adviser and longtime battlefield commander, says the American tanks in particular — once they arrive — will give Ukraine a much-needed boost in firepower against the Russians.
“If the crew knows what it’s doing, is well trained, does the preps, the fire checks, maintains that tank well, you just can’t miss,” he said, “and everything you hit is catastrophically destroyed.”
The Leopards will also mark a significant upgrade, moving faster and packing more firepower and personnel armor than the tanks Ukraine currently has at its disposal.
But until the machines actually join the fight, the grueling back-and-forth battle — and Russia’s devastating aerial assault — will likely grind on until one side launches a new offensive.
Ukraine said it shot down the majority of the missiles launched by Russia on Thursday, and all of the drones sent across the border.
Ukraine’s Energy Minister, German Galushchenko, said Russia was trying to “create a systemic failure in Ukraine’s energy system,” confirming that “emergency shutdowns have been introduced,” with the biggest impacts being felt around the capital, around the central city of Vinnytsia, and near the southern port city of Odesa.
The situation around the Black Sea port “may last for several days until the damaged power facilities are restored,” according to the power company in the region.
At the request of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the United Nations’ culture agency UNESCO added Odesa’s historic center to its World Heritage list as an endangered city on Wednesday, CBS News correspondent Pamela Falk reported.
— UNESCO 🏛️ #Education #Sciences #Culture 🇺🇳 (@UNESCO) January 26, 2023
UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay said Odesa was a “free city, a world city and a legendary port” that was now under “reinforced protection,” as the U.N. will now ensure that repairs are made to any damage inflicted on central Odesa amid Russia’s war on Ukraine. Russia tried to block the UNESCO designation, and then denounced it.
The Russian missiles that hit critical power infrastructure in Odesa and the other regions, and killed 11 people, were a stark reminder, meanwhile, that the war Vladimir Putin launched almost one year ago is far from over.
Washington — The U.S. targeted the Russia-backed Wagner Group in a new round of sanctions on Thursday, labeling the mercenary group a transnational criminal organization and accusing it of atrocities in Ukraine and around the world.
The Treasury Department said it sanctioned eight individuals and 16 entities, many with ties to the Wagner Group. The organization is a private military contractor led by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin who has also been sanctioned by the U.S. in the past.
“As sanctions and export controls on Russia from our international coalition continue to bite, the Kremlin is desperately searching for arms and support — including through the brutal Wagner Group — to continue its unjust war against Ukraine,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement. “Today’s expanded sanctions on Wagner, as well as new sanctions on their associates and other companies enabling the Russian military complex, will further impede Putin’s ability to arm and equip his war machine.”
The Wagner Group has roughly 50,000 personnel currently stationed in Ukraine, including 40,000 convicts who have been recruited from Russian jails, according to the White House. Its fighters have recently been involved in heavy fighting in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, and forced Ukrainian troops to retreat from the town of Soledar this week.
The sanctions accuse the mercenary group of supporting the Russian war effort in Ukraine and “committing widespread human rights abuses and extorting natural resources” in Africa, including “mass executions, rape, child abductions, and physical abuse” in the Central African Republic and Mali.
Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin attends the funeral of Dmitry Menshikov, a fighter who died in Ukraine, at a cemetery outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Saturday, Dec. 24, 2022.
AP Photo, File
The Treasury Department also took action against two companies based in Russia and China that provide commercial satellite imagery and aerial footage to the Wagner Group to assist its efforts in Ukraine. Several aircraft companies and technology firms connected to Russia’s military were likewise targeted.
Two Russian officials in Putin’s presidential administration, Aleksandr Kharichev and Boris Rapoport, were sanctioned for their work in orchestrating referendums in Russia-controlled areas of Ukraine last fall. Western nations widely denounced those elections as illegal and a sham.
The Treasury Department’s sanctions block those targeted from accessing any assets in the U.S. and forbids anyone in the U.S. from doing business with them without a special license. They are one of the primary tools the U.S. has used to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, which is approaching its second year next month.
John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, previewed the new sanctions during a White House briefing last week. He said the U.S. has seen signs that “tensions between Wagner and the Russian Ministry of Defense are increasing” as Putin relies more heavily on Wagner personnel.
“Wagner is becoming a rival power center to the Russian military and other Russian ministries. Publicly, Prigozhin and his fighters have criticized Russian generals and defense officials for their performance on the battlefield,” Kirby said. “Prigozhin is trying to advance his own interests in Ukraine, and Wagner is making military decisions based largely — largely — on what they will generate for Prigozhin, in terms of positive publicity.”
Kirby said the sanctions show that the U.S. will “work relentlessly to identify, disrupt, expose, and target those who are assisting Wagner.”
Wagner Group fighters have become the disposable infantry of the Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine, but a Ukrainian military intelligence document obtained by CNN sets out how effective they have been around the city of Bakhmut – and how difficult they are to fight against.
Wagner is a private military contractor run by oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has been highly visible on the frontlines in recent weeks – and always quick to claim credit for Russian advances. Wagner fighters have been heavily involved in taking Soledar, a few miles northeast of Bakhmut, and areas around the town.
The Ukrainian report – dated December 2022 – concludes that Wagner represents a unique threat at close quarters, even while suffering extraordinary casualties. “The deaths of thousands of Wagner soldiers do not matter to Russian society,” the report asserts.
“Assault groups do not withdraw without a command… Unauthorized withdrawal of a team or without being wounded is punishable by execution on the spot.”
Phone intercepts obtained by a Ukrainian intelligence source and shared with CNN also indicate a merciless attitude on the battlefield. In one, a soldier is heard talking about another who tried to surrender to the Ukrainians.
“The Wagnerians caught him and cut his f**king balls off,” the soldier says.
CNN can’t independently authenticate the call, which is alleged to have taken place in November.
Wounded Wagner fighters are often left on the battlefield for hours, according to the Ukrainian assessment. “Assault infantry is not allowed to carry the wounded off the battlefield on their own, as their main task is to continue the assault until the goal is achieved. If the assault fails, retreat is also allowed only at night.”
Despite a brutal indifference to casualties – demonstrated by Prigozhin himself – the Ukrainian analysis says that Wagner’s tactics “are the only ones that are effective for the poorly trained mobilized troops that make up the majority of Russian ground forces.”
It suggests the Russian army may even be adapting its tactics to become more like Wagner, saying: “Instead of the classic battalion tactical groups of the Russian Armed Forces, assault units are proposed.”
That would be a significant change to the Russians’ traditional reliance on larger, mechanized units.
On the ground, according to Ukrainian intelligence phone intercepts, some mobilized troops are thinking about switching to Wagner. In one such intercept, a soldier contrasts Wagner with his unit and says: “It’s f**king heaven and earth. So if I’m going to f**king serve, I’d better f**king serve there.”
Ukrainian defense intelligence official: Putin’s command structure is ‘very problematic’
The Ukrainian report says that Wagner deploys its forces in mobile groups of about a dozen or fewer, using rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and exploiting real-time drone intelligence, which the report describes as the “key element.”
Another tool the Wagner soldiers have is the use of communications equipment made by Motorola, according to the document.
Motorola told CNN it has suspended all sales to Russia and closed its operations there.
Convicts – tens of thousands of whom have been recruited by Wagner – frequently form the first wave in an attack and take the heaviest casualties – as high as 80% according to Ukrainian officials.
More experienced fighters, with thermal imagery and night-vision equipment, follow.
For the Ukrainians, their own drone intelligence is critical to prevent their trenches being overwhelmed by grenade attacks. The document recounts an incident in December in which a drone spotted an advancing Wagner group, allowing Ukrainian defenses to eliminate it before its troops were able to fire RPGs.
If Wagner forces succeed in taking a position, artillery support allows them to dig foxholes and consolidate their gains, but those foxholes are very vulnerable to attack in open land. And again – according to Ukrainian intercepts – coordination between Wagner and the Russian military is often lacking. In one intercepted call – again not verifiable – a soldier told his father that his unit had mistakenly taken out a Wagner vehicle.
Prigozhin has repeatedly insisted that his fighters were responsible for capturing the town of Soledar and nearby settlements in the past week, the first Russian military gains in months. “No units other than Wagner PMC operatives were involved in the storming of Soledar,” he claimed.
Wagner’s performance is Prigozhin’s route to more resources and is instrumental in his ongoing battle with the Russian military establishment, which he has frequently criticized as inept and corrupt.
According to UK intelligence, Russian military chief of staff Valery Gerasimov gave orders that soldiers should be better turned out. Prigozhin responded that “war is the time of the active and courageous, and not of the clean-shaven.”
Commenting on the new Gerasimov strictures, the UK Defense Ministry said Monday: “The Russian force continues to endure operational deadlock and heavy casualties; Gerasimov’s prioritisation of largely minor regulations is likely to confirm the fears of his many sceptics in Russia.”
Gerasimov was appointed the overall commander of Russia’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine earlier this month amid mounting criticism of its faltering progress.
So long as the Russian defense ministry underperforms, Prigozhin will snap at its heels and demand more resources for Wagner.
The group also appears able to gain weapons by other means. US officials said last week that Wagner had sourced arms from North Korea. “Last month, North Korea delivered infantry rockets and missiles into Russia for use by Wagner,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
Prigozhin is not short of ambition. As he stood in Soledar last week, he declared that Wagner was probably “the most experienced army in the world today.”
He claimed its forces already had multiple launch rocket systems, their own air defenses and artillery.
Prigozhin also made a subtle comparison between Wagner and the top-down rigidity of the Russian military, saying that “everyone who is on the ground is listened to. Commanders consult with the fighters, and the PMC (private military company) leadership consults with the commanders.”
“That is why the Wagner PMC has moved forward and will continue to move forward.”
Two months ago, Andrei Kolesnikov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace likened Prigozhin’s growing influence to that of Grigori Rasputin at the court of Tsar Nicholas II. “Putin needs military effectiveness at any cost,” he told Current Time TV.
“There is a negative diabolical charisma in [Prigozhin], and in a sense this charisma can compete with Putin’s. Putin now needs him in this capacity, in this form.”
Prigozhin appears to have been intrigued by the comparison with Rasputin, a mystical figure who treated the Tsar’s son for hemophilia, the bleeding disorder. But in comments this weekend published by his company Concord, he had his own typical twist on it.
“Unfortunately, I do not staunch blood flow. I bleed the enemies of our motherland. And not by incantations, but by direct contact with them.”
Western allies are sending tanks to Ukraine to aid in the country’s efforts to retake territory from Russia. But President Biden said it could take months for the tanks promised to arrive. Debora Patta reports.
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Both the U.S. and Germany have agreed to send advanced battle tanks to Ukraine. CBS News’ John Dickerson is joined by Lara Seligman, Pentagon reporter for Politico, to discuss the tanks and the next challenges in the war.
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Washington — President Biden announced Wednesday that the U.S. will send 31 top-of-the-line M1 Abrams battle tanks to Ukraine, delivering on a key request from Kyiv that will provide a major boost to Ukrainian firepower over the coming months.
“Today, I’m announcing that the United States will be sending 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, the equivalent of one Ukrainian battalion,” Mr. Biden said at the White House, flanked by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The security package is worth roughly $400 million, the Pentagon said.
The move comes after Germany said it would quickly provide 14 of its own Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and allow Western partners to re-export their own, a move that Mr. Biden praised. France, the U.K., Finland, the Netherlands and other nations are also sending key security assistance, Mr. Biden noted, emphasizing that the United States’ move is part of a concerted effort by Western allies.
“Today’s announcement builds on the hard work and commitment from countries around the world, led by the United States of America, to help Ukraine defend its sovereignty and its territorial integrity,” Mr. Biden said. “That’s what this is about, helping Ukraine protect and defend Ukrainian land. It is not an offensive threat to Russia. There is no offensive threat to Russia. If Russian troops return to Russia … where they belong, this war would be over today.”
The delivery of the Abrams tanks will take several months, given the time needed to procure them and train Ukrainian troops on their use.
On a call with reporters previewing the president’s announcement, senior administration officials said the decision to provide the tanks is a “continuation of our effort to provide Ukraine with the capabilities that they need to continue to better defend themselves.” Mr. Biden spoke with the leaders of France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. Wednesday morning ahead of his remarks.
The M1 Abrams is the U.S. military’s main tank system and “the most capable tanks in the world,” Mr. Biden said. Ukrainian officials have been pleading with Western allies to provide them with tanks to bolster counter-offensives in the spring aimed at retaking areas held by dug-in Russian troops. The U.S. and more than 50 other countries committed to providing roughly 500 other armored vehicles during talks last week.
The Abrams tanks and other armored vehicles are key to helping Ukraine fight the Russians on open terrain, like that found in the mostly flat Donbas region, which has seen intense fighting between Ukraine and Russia-backed separatists since 2014.
U.S. officials have for weeks resisted arming the Ukrainians with Abrams tanks, arguing the Leopard tanks, which run on diesel as opposed to the jet fuel needed to power the Abrams, are better suited to meet the Ukrainians’ immediate needs on the battlefield. But pressure from other allies — particularly Poland and the Baltic states — and the Ukrainians themselves to provide Kyiv with advanced tank systems had been growing for weeks.
A U.S. Army M1 Abrams tank fires during a NATO exercise in Latvia on March 26, 2021.
INTS KALNINS / REUTERS
One of the U.S. officials on the call Wednesday said the tanks will help Ukraine defend itself against expected Russian offensives in the spring and help Ukrainian troops reclaim territory.
“We want to make sure that they have the right capabilities to not only defend themselves against the Russian onslaught — and we do expect that Mr. Putin and the Russian military will try to go on the offense here in coming weeks and months, as the weather gets better — but also that they have the ability to retake, to reclaim their sovereign territory,” including Crimea, the official said.
The U.S. announcement happened to fall on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s birthday. He told a German TV network on Tuesday that the tanks from Western allies will provide a much-needed morale boost to his soldiers on the front lines.
“They do only one very important thing — they motivate our soldiers to fight for their own values, because they show that the whole world is with you,” Zelenskyy said.
The tanks will not come directly from the U.S. arsenal. The administration will instead procure the systems using funds from its Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. That decision, coupled with the extensive training needed to operate the tanks, means it will take a while for the vehicles to be in Ukrainian hands.
“We’re talking months as opposed to weeks,” one senior administration official said.
“[The Pentagon] is currently working through the mechanisms to deliver the fuel and equipment Ukraine will need to operate and to maintain the Abrams,” another official added. “We do expect other nations to announce contributions of additional armored capability, including some that will be readily available for use on the battlefield in the coming weeks and months.”
David Martin, Eleanor Watson and Haley Ott contributed reporting.
