In view of the lack of delivery of “Leopard” battle tanks to Ukraine, Green politician Anton Hofreiter is pushing for Ukrainian soldiers to be trained on the tanks. In Ramstein, Germany “made a serious mistake and as a result lost more respect,” the chairman of the Bundestag’s Europe Committee told the newspapers of the Funke media group. “That must now be corrected quickly.” Specifically, Hofreiter calls for the training of Ukrainian soldiers on “Leopards” to begin “right away”. The “Leopard 2” is “a crucial support that Germany can offer,” said Hofreiter. “Putin will only be willing to negotiate when he realizes that he cannot win this war.”
+++ 06:21 “New York Times” calls on Russians to see the truth +++
In an editorial, the editors of the “New York Times” address the Russian population directly and call on them to withdraw their support for the war. The military aid to Ukraine is about convincing Russia that a negotiated peace is the only option. “That’s why the coming fight is so important. But as Mr. Putin digs deeper into his delusions, it’s also important that the Russian people are clear about what is being done in his name and how they are destroying their own future. Most Russians should at least ask themselves when and how this war will end: “It is in their name that their President is waging this terrible and senseless war; their sons, fathers and husbands being killed, maimed or brutally coerced into atrocities; their lives being pawned for generations to come in a state viewed with suspicion and dislike in many parts of the world.”
+++ 04:37 According to insiders, Russia is increasingly attacking outside of the Donbass +++
Russia appears to be stepping up shelling on eastern regions of Ukraine outside the main front line in Donbass. This is confirmed by government officials from the Zaporizhia and Sumy regions. The Russian Defense Ministry, on the other hand, says a recent offensive has put its army units in more advantageous positions along the front line in Zaporizhia. Yevhen Yerin, a military spokesman in Zaporizhia, contradicts Moscow’s claim, telling Ukrainian TV station Suspilne: “At the moment they have not conquered anything. All their attempts have been repelled and the enemy has suffered casualties.” The reports of the fighting cannot be independently verified.
+++ 02:34 report: Japan’s Prime Minister wants to travel to Kyiv +++
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida apparently wants to travel to Kyiv in February and talk to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy there. As the Japanese newspaper “Yomiuri” reports, citing government circles, as chairman of the Group of Seven Leading Economic Nations (G7) this year, he wants to show that Japan intends to continue supporting Ukraine. Kishida is also expected to make a statement in Kyiv condemning Russian aggression, the paper said.
+++ 01:01 Hofreiter: Train Ukrainians “right now” on Leopard +++
The Greens are growing dissatisfied with the lack of delivery of Leopard main battle tanks to Ukraine. “Germany made a serious mistake in Ramstein and lost more respect as a result,” Green politician Anton Hofreiter told the newspapers of the Funke media group. “That must now be corrected quickly.” Specifically, Hofreiter is calling for Ukrainian soldiers to start training on Leopard battle tanks “right now.” The Leopard 2 is a crucial support that Germany can offer, according to Hofreiter. “Putin will only be willing to negotiate when he realizes that he cannot win this war.”
+++ 23:07 Selenskyj addresses parting words to dead minister +++
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi bid an emotional farewell to Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi, who died in a helicopter crash. “Every day we lose people who we will always remember and who we regret not being able to bring back,” says Zelenskyj in his daily video address. Zelenskyy wishes that all Ukrainians feel the loss. He wishes “that we feel how many lives, how many clever people the war costs. I want us all to honor her memory today,” says the president.
+++ 10:07 p.m. Strack-Zimmermann calls for clarity on tank deliveries +++
The Chairwoman of the Defense Committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, expects Chancellor Olaf Scholz to make clear statements about further military support for Ukraine, which is being attacked by Russia. “If you don’t want to deliver ‘Leopard 2’, then you have to explain why. Then you have to explain why to Ukraine,” says the FDP politician Tagesschau24 with regard to the debate about the delivery of German battle tanks. Germany has decided to deliver the Marder infantry fighting vehicle, according to Strack-Zimmermann. “An armored personnel carrier and a battle tank work together. And if you don’t want all that, then you have to explain it to people. But it’s always a mystery like this. Everyone thinks, guesses who knows what. And that’s why this communication is so terrible, Above all, because it also covers up everything we do.”
+++ 21:33 ex-ambassador Melnyk insults SPD parliamentary group leader Mützenich as a “cynical and disgusting” politician +++
The leader of the SPD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Rolf Mützenich, not only gets a good verbal beating from his traffic light colleague from the FDP, but now also from the former Ukrainian ambassador Andriy Melnyk. “This guy is the most cynical and disgusting German politician,” writes Melnyk, now his country’s deputy foreign minister, on Twitter. “He bears full responsibility for this disastrous image of Germany in the world. He will forever go down in history as the most valuable Russian asset since the start of massive Russian aggression by blocking support to Ukraine.”
+++ 20:52 suspected corruption in the Ukrainian army: the minister should report +++
According to official information, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov is to address reports in front of the parliament in Kyiv about overpriced food purchases for the army. Reznikov has been invited to a hearing, says the vice-chair of the Rada Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence, Marjana Besugla, on the national radio, Suspilne Media. In addition, the Court of Auditors will take a close look at the Ministry of Defense. Earlier, media reports in Kyiv caused a stir that the Defense Ministry was buying food to feed its soldiers at prices up to three times higher than retail prices in stores. The contract for 13 billion hryvnia (a good 300 million euros) is said to be about feeding the soldiers at the front, but in the rear. Ukraine was granted EU candidate status in June, four months after Russia launched a war of aggression against the country. The conditions for accession include the rule of law and progress in the fight against corruption, where Ukraine, despite numerous efforts in recent years, still ranks at the bottom in the world.
+++ 20:07 RT France announces closure after freezing its accounts +++
After freezing the accounts of the Russian state broadcaster RT in France, it has now announced its closure. After “five years of harassment”, the authorities have achieved their goal – RT France will be closed, explains the director of the station, Xenia Fedorova, via Twitter. Shortly after Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the EU imposed a broadcast ban on Russian media. RT France had appealed against the distribution ban before the EU court in Luxembourg, which, however, declared the measure to be legal in July. France was the only EU Member State that had a registered RT subsidiary that continued to produce and distribute programmes.
+++ 19:39 According to the report, the “Leopard” list was already available in the Ministry of Defense in early summer 2022 +++
Several media reports on the status of the inventory of German “Leopard” tanks reveal an increasingly diffuse picture as far as the progress of such a count or examination and sighting is concerned. While “Business Insider” reports, citing sources in the Defense Ministry, that the recently resigned Defense Minister Lambrecht prohibited her officials from taking stock shortly before her resignation, i.e. in January 2023, “Spiegel” has completely different information: the magazine reports that it have been giving the Ministry of Defense since early summer 2022 a detailed list of various “Leopard” models that are available to the troops and could be considered for delivery to Ukraine. The table, which is classified as classified, is available to the magazine. According to this, the Bundeswehr has a total of 312 different Leopard 2 tanks of different series, of which 99 were for maintenance and repair work in the armaments industry in May last year, and one was already being discarded. The new Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius, announced on Friday at a conference of Ukraine supporters in Ramstein that he wanted to have it checked which and how many “Leopard” tanks from the Bundeswehr would actually be suitable for delivery to Ukraine. When asked why his predecessor had not long since awarded such an order, the SPD politician said he knew nothing about it. His test order affects both the stocks of the Bundeswehr and those of industry.
You can read earlier developments in the Ukraine war here.