Facing yet another series of attacks against civilians, including the deaths of three and ten wounded in Kherson, in the south, and another dead and three wounded in Kharkiv, in the northeast, the Ukrainian president again appealed to allied countries and partners help your country as soon as possible. Hours after Volodymyr Zelensky’s appeal, NATO’s Secretary General urged South Korea to take aid to Ukraine to another level, and the Polish Prime Minister expressed willingness to send F-16s to Kyiv .
“It is very important to maintain the momentum of defense support from our partners. The speed of supplies has been and will be one of the most important factors in this war. Russia hopes to prolong the war to exhaust our forces,” said Zelensky at his usual evening address. . “That is why we must make time our weapon. We must accelerate events, speed up delivery and open new armaments options that are needed for Ukraine,” he continued, after specifying the support obtained in recent days from the US, Germany , Poland, Canada, Belgium, Norway and Italy.
Of the countries put forward by the Ukrainian president, the Norwegian government has indicated through the defense minister that it intends to send the Leopard 2 tanks “as soon as possible”, with a target of the end of March, although they have yet to not sure if the number of tanks to supply is below the 36 that Oslo has. Poland announced on Monday that its defense budget will reach 4% of gross domestic product (GDP), while last week parliament approved spending equivalent to 3% of GDP. “The war in Ukraine makes us arm even faster. That’s why we will make an unprecedented effort this year,” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said.
When asked about Zelensky’s call for faster delivery of the promised weapons and faster decisions on the deployment of additional weapons, including fighter jets, Morawiecki replied as before regarding the Leopard 2 tanks, saying that this will only happen in “full coordination”. with NATO allies. “As happened a few months ago with MiG-29 aircraft, any other air assistance will be coordinated, applied and transferred with other NATO member states.” Warsaw has been one of Ukraine’s most important allies, signing several acquisitions, including tanks from the US, aircraft, howitzers, and tanks from South Korea.
And it was in Seoul that the secretary general of the Atlantic Alliance also called on South Korea to abandon its restrictive policy on arms and ammunition exports to conflict countries. Jens Stoltenberg urged South Koreans to do more as there is an “urgent need” for ammunition in Ukraine and noted that countries like Germany, Sweden and Norway had policies similar to Seoul’s but that has since changed. “If we don’t want autocracy and tyranny to win, then they [ucranianos] needing weapons, that’s the reality,” Stoltenberg said during a meeting with President Yoon Suk-yeol.
After the Norwegian, the US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, landed in the South Korean capital. While the purpose of the visit is related to security in the Korean Peninsula and the region, the issue of aid to Ukraine cannot be left out of the agenda.
At Zelensky’s call, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov again warned that further arms shipments to Ukraine would lead to a “significant escalation” of the conflict. British Defense Ministry intelligence said Moscow is “likely to keep open the option” of announcing another “partial mobilisation”.
Missile for Boris
Peskov also commented on statements made by Boris Johnson in a BBC documentary, in which the former British prime minister said the Russian president had threatened him with an attack days before he launched the offensive in Ukraine. “At one point he [Putin] as if he threatened me and said: “Boris, I don’t want to hurt you, but with a missile it only takes a minute,” or something like that,” said the Briton.
“What Mr. Johnson said is a lie. Moreover, this is either an intentional lie – and then one must ask Mr. Johnson for what purpose he chose this version of events – or it was involuntary and he did not really understand what he President Putin told him,” the Kremlin spokesman responded.
Source: DN
