Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has said Kyiv expects to receive 120 to 140 tanks in a “first wave” of deliveries from a coalition of 12 countries. “The tank coalition now has 12 members. I can note that in the first wave of contributions, the Ukrainian armed forces will receive between 120 and 140 western-model tanks,” Kuleba said in an online briefing on Tuesday.
The United States will not provide the F-16 fighter jets that Ukraine has sought in its fight against Russia, Joe Biden said on Monday, as Russian forces claimed a series of incremental gains in the country’s east.
The UK’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, supports accelerating support for Ukraine after completing a review that a “prolonged stalemate” in the conflict would benefit Russia, a No 10 spokesperson said. The spokesperson also said it would not be “practical” for the UK to send its fighter jets to Ukraine, as the jets are “extremely sophisticated and take months to learn how to fly”.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s most senior adviser, Andriy Yermak, has suggested Poland is willing to supply Ukraine with the F-16 fighters. Yermak said Ukraine had had “positive signals” from Warsaw in a Telegram posting, although Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, was careful to stress his own country would only act in consultation with Nato allies, as Ukraine’s lobbying for the combat jets steps up only a few days after Germany and the US agreed to send over tanks.
Zelenskiy has called for western weapons to be supplied more quickly. Speaking in his nightly address, the Ukrainian president said Russia was hoping to drag out the war, and exhaust his country’s ability to resist the invaders. “So we have to make time our weapon. We must speed up the events, speed up the supply and opening of new necessary weaponry options for Ukraine,” Zelenskiy said.
The Kremlin warned the west’s supplying of further weapons to Ukraine would only lead to “significant escalation” of the conflict. Kyiv “demands more and more weapons” while Nato countries were “more and more becoming directly involved in the conflict”, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, after Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, Andriy Melnyk, called on Germany to send his country a submarine.
Russian forces continued attacks on positions across the frontline near the eastern cities of Bakhmut and Donetsk. Moscow’s troops have been pounding Bakhmut in the Donbas for several months, but in recent days the invaders appeared to have opened up a new effort to gain ground around the village of Vuhledar, 30 miles south-west of Donetsk city.
The situation in Bakhmut and Vuhledar was “very tough” with both areas and other parts of the Donetsk region “under constant Russian attacks”, Zelenskiy said. Vuhledar is close to the junction with the southern Zaporizhzhia front and considered a hinge point for both sides, but remains held by the Ukrainians despite a claim by the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic to the contrary.
Ukraine’s military and Russia’s Wagner private military group are both claiming to have control in the area of Blahodatne, eastern Donetsk region.
Russian forces are preparing for a renewed attack on Ukraine imminently, with the most likely course of action being an offensive in the coming months, according to analysts. Citing western, Ukrainian and Russian sources, the US thinktank the Institute for the Study of War writes that Moscow is “preparing for an imminent offensive”.
Dmitry Medvedev, long-term ally of Vladimir Putin, and currently deputy chairman of the security council of Russia, has boasted that sanctions are having little effect on the Russian economy.
Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg and Japan’s premier Fumio Kishida pledged on Tuesday to strengthen ties, saying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its growing military co-operation with China had created the most tense security environment since the second world war.
A Russian court has fined the streaming service Twitch 4m roubles (£46,200/$57,000) for failing to remove what it said were “fakes” about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry criticised the president of Croatia, Zoran Milanović, for saying Crimea would never return to Ukrainian control, describing his comment as “unacceptable”. On Monday in remarks detailing his objection to Zagreb providing military aid to Kyiv, Milanović said it was “clear that Crimea will never again be part of Ukraine”.
Russia and Belarus have started a week-long session of staff training for the joint command of their regional grouping of forces, the Belarusian defence ministry said on Tuesday.
The Russian government on Monday banned domestic oil exporters and customs bodies from adhering to western-imposed price caps on Russian crude. The measure was issued to help enforce President Vladimir Putin’s decree of 27 December that prohibited the supply of crude oil and oil products from 1 February for five months, to nations that abide by the caps. The new Russian act bans corporates and individuals from including oil price cap mechanisms in their contracts.
The UK’s defence minister, Ben Wallace, has said that the tanks donated to Ukraine will arrive on the frontline “this side of the summer”. Britain should be “really proud” of having led the world in supporting Ukraine and standing up to Russian aggression, prime minister Rishi Sunak has said.