Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky renewed his call for Western nations to provide Ukraine with more powerful weapons, including the army’s tactical missile system, known as ATACM, to help Kyiv defend against Russian attacks from locations away from the front line. “There can be no taboos in the supply of weapons to protect against Russian terrorism”, Zelensky said in his late night speech.
Kyiv has long maintained that it needs US-made weapons to hit Russian targets in places such as Crimea – which have been used to launch missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, with Devastating effect. Washington has so far resisted appeals from Kyivfearing that Ukraine has a weapon able to hitting targets inside Russia could escalate the nearly year-long conflict.
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4. From our correspondents
It was Secretary of State Antony Blinken who suggested the possible workaround, write Karen DeYoung, Dan Lamothe and Loveday Morris. What if they announced a commitment to supply M1s – something Scholz insisted on if Germany was to supply its own main battle tanks – but at some point as part of Kyiv’s long-term needs? This could provide Scholz with the cover he was looking for to allow the Leopards to move on immediately. At the same time, it would give the Pentagon time to address concerns about training and logistics.