The Chief of Staff of the United States Armed Forces, Mark Milley, expressed strong doubts on Friday whether Ukraine will be able to expel Russian troops from its territory in the course of this year.
“From a military point of view, I claim that this year it will be very, very difficult to militarily expel Russian troops from Ukraine.”he told journalists at a meeting organized by the United States about the situation of Ukraine in Germany.
“This war, like many wars in the past, will end at a negotiating table”he stressed, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin could end the war immediately.
The Contact Group for Ukraine, created and led by the United States and made up of about 50 countries, will meet this Friday at the US Air Force Base in Ramstein, Germany, to coordinate the delivery of more aid to Kiev.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has insisted that the country, which has been the target of a Russian military offensive for nearly a year, needs heavier and more modern weapons, expecting the West to provide tanks and air defense systems in particular.
Germany is under pressure to allow delivery to Ukrainian forces of German-made Leopard 2 tanks operational in NATO partner countries.
Poland has already announced that it is ready to re-export the Leopard 2, but that it “needs a “German permit”.
On the eve of the meeting, Zelensky again asked Berlin to allow the delivery of Leopard 2s.
“You can talk about it for six months, but people are dying every day in my country,” the Ukrainian leader said in an interview with German public television ARD.
The issue of Leopard 2 tanks weighs heavily on Germany’s new defense minister Boris Pistorius, who took office this week and met his US counterpart for the first time on Thursday. After the meeting, Boris Pistorius insisted that there would be no “unilateral decisions” on the German side.
In addition to US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Chief of Staff of the United States of America (US) General Mark Milley and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov will be in attendance. present the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and discuss sending more weapons with allies capable of securing supplies.
The Minister of National Defense, Helena Carreiras, also participates in the meeting.
The so-called “Ukraine Defense Contact Group” (original name in English) was established in April 2022 at the base in Ramstein, Germany, with the participation of defense ministers from more than 40 countries, including Portugal.
The Russian military offensive on Ukrainian territory, launched on February 24 last year, plunged Europe into what is considered the most serious security crisis since World War II (1939-1945).
Source: DN
