Posted on 01/24/2023 4:33:37 AM PST by tlozo
Poland has officially requested permission from Germany to transfer its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine where they can help fight Russia's invasion, Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak said Tuesday. Berlin has received Warsaw’s request, Błaszczak said in a tweet, though German officials did not immediately confirm that.
The development on possible tank deliveries came as Ukrainian authorities moved to crack down on corruption, with three senior officials announcing their exit Tuesday.
Błaszczak also appealed to Germany “to join the coalition of countries supporting Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks” — a reference to recent pressure on Berlin to send some of its own tanks. Germany has hesitated to take that step, despite Ukraine's pleas.
"This is our common cause, because it is about the security of the whole of Europe!” Błaszczak tweeted.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday called for the speedy delivery of new weapons to Ukraine, where a broad battlefield stalemate is expected to give way to new offensives in the spring.
“At this crucial moment in the war, we need to provide Ukraine with heavier and more advanced systems, and we need to do it faster,” Stoltenberg said Tuesday after talks with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius in Berlin.
In Kiev, meanwhile, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office quit Tuesday after President Volodymyr Zelensky pledged to launch a staff shake-up amid high-level corruption allegations.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, asked to be relieved of his duties, according to an online copy of a decree signed by Zelensky and Tymoshenko’s own social media posts. Neither gave a reason for the resignation.
Deputy Defense Minister Viacheslav Shapovalov also resigned, local media reported, alleging his departure was linked to a scandal involving the purchase of food for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Deputy Prosecutor General Oleksiy Symonenko quit, too.
With Western allies pouring billions of dollars into Ukraine to help Kiev’s fight against Moscow, Zelensky had pledged to weed out corruption which some observers have described as endemic. Zelensky came to power in 2019 on an anti-establishment and anti-corruption platform.
Tymoshenko joined the presidential office in 2019, after working on Zelensky’s media and creative content strategy during his presidential campaign.
Last year he was under investigation relating to his personal use of luxury cars. He was also among officials linked last September to the embezzlement of humanitarian aid worth more than $7 million earmarked for the southern Zaporizhzhia region. He has denied all the allegations.
On Sunday, a deputy minister was dismissed for being part of a network embezzling budget funds. Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry later identified the dismissed official as Vasyl Lozynsky, a deputy minister there.
Oleksandr Kubrakov, the infrastructure minister, said Lozynsky was relieved of his duties after Ukraine’s anti-corruption agency detained him while he was receiving a $400,000 bribe for helping to fix contracts related to restoring infrastructure facilities battered by Russian missile strikes.
In his nightly video address, Zelensky said that Ukraine’s focus on the war would not stop his government from tackling corruption.
“I want to be clear: There will be no return to what used to be in the past,” Zelensky said.
The anti-corruption drive is vital if Ukraine wants to advance its application for membership of the European Union. To gain EU membership, countries must meet a detailed host of economic and political conditions, including a commitment to the rule of law and other democratic principles.
Last June, the European Union agreed Thursday to put Ukraine on a path toward EU membership, acting with uncharacteristic speed and unity to pull the embattled country further away from Russia’s influence and bind it more closely to the West.
Ukraine has long aspired to join NATO, too, but the military alliance is not about to offer an invitation, in part because of the country’s corruption, shortcomings in its defense establishment, and its contested borders.
ABC News reports that 12 out of the 15 countries that met for the separate Leopard meeting at Ramstein declared their willingness to send their tanks as soon as Germany agrees to provide an export license.
good on Poland and all the 12 countries. God Bless them
Or is it a xiden cabinet meeting
lol - too true, unfortunately
The combination of military losses and blatant corruption are consequential and signal the unraveling of the Zelensky government. This bad news comes on the heels of last weeks loss of the Ministry of Interior leadership. There are no wunder waffen waiting in the wings that can salvage Ukraine at this point. Even if German caves and decides to send forty year old “modern” Main Battle Tanks, Ukraine lacks the personnel and time to train a unit of tank operators that can perform competently on the battlefield. But these facts will not stop Zelensky from insisting, “It’s only a flesh wound.”
Washington could thus soon be faced with some dangerous choices. Should it commit US forces or US air power to Ukraine? If it did so, how quickly would the war spread in Europe?
Would NATO, always far more boisterous than can be justified by reality, support sending NATO forces to Ukraine? Or would NATO’s knees finally buckle?
The alternative – and more likely – scenario is that Washington will push for a peace settlement, something it has strictly opposed in the past. Will Russia be willing to sit down and discuss a deal? Of course, but only if the price is right.
You keep posting these moronic articles from Asia, that have no sense of reality.
Why do you Putinistas always post homo crap?
This war is ending up exactly AS MY SOURCES indicate because they aren't spewing propaganda for the liberal world order and its money laundering operation in Ukraine.
You and your ilk are going to have a lot of explaining to do when this is all over.
There is nothing conservative or American First about the nonsense you and your ilk spew here daily.
You keep posting and re-posting from the same pro-russian bs sites.
“”YOUR sources and the Biden regime and Deep State, which lie like they breath and have been consistently WRONG about this war.””
“”This war is ending up exactly AS MY SOURCES indicate “”
You may want to take notice that you are posting this a week before February 2023, not in February of 2022.
FTA: “I want to be clear: There will be no return to what used to be in the past,” Zelensky said.
____________________________
Zelensky wife recently spent at least $40,000 eoros? at 1 store in Paris. Is this what he means? Did she spend less or more then those before her?
Soon to be on the black market.
Since when does Poland have to ask Germany for anything?
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