At least one person has been killed and others are injured after Russian forces fired more than 30 missiles at several targets across Ukraine officials told residents to remain in shelters 15 of the drones were downed around the capital cave the mayor confirmed a huge explosion the attacks come a day after Germany.
The United States announced plans to supply Ukraine with modern battle tanks here after days of diplomatic wrangling two big announcements from either side of the Atlantic today.
I'm announcing that the United States will be sending 31 Abram tanks to Ukraine the equivalent of one Ukrainian Battalion secretary Austin has recommended this step because it will enhance Ukraine's capacity to defend its territory and achieve its strategic objectives the U.S president's statement came just hours after Germany announced it would deliver 14 of its leopard two battle tanks to Ukraine this is the result of renewed.
Intense consultations with our allies and international Partners I would like to underline that it was right and it is right that we didn't let ourselves be forced into action and that we instead counted and will continue to count on close cooperation on these issues International pressure had been growing in Germany to agree to send leper two tanks to Ukraine or to at least lift an export ban on the german-made tanks so other countries could Supply them but last week a meeting of Defense leaders from more than 50 countries at Ramstein Air Base in Germany failed to produce any agreements Chancellor Olaf Schultz was unwilling to send German tanks unless the US made a similar commitment that diplomatic gamble seemingly paid off.
The agreement to supply the tanks is a huge political turnaround for Germany and it's a major boost for Ukraine Western Battle Tanks like the leopard and the Abrams are what Ukrainian president folaromir Zielinski has long been pleading for and many say they could be a game changer in the war.
I am grateful to all our allies for their willingness to provide us with modern and much-needed tanks this proves the most important fact for the world today the fact that freedom is only getting stronger and the way we are all working together to strengthen freedom to defend Ukraine and Europe is a historic achievement of a part of the leaders who are working on it right now massage but Zielinski also stressed that speed is now key while the first leopard tanks could arrive in Ukraine in the next two to three months the White House has already said that it will likely be many more months before it's Abraham's tanks will arrive at the front and earlier.
I spoke with DW correspondent Matthias Bolinger about the new missile attacks on Ukraine this morning he was in Kyiv yeah it was another attack with missiles and with Jones pretty much what we've seen before major cities targeted in Ukraine means the capital and also cities like Odesa or vaporized there have been explosions in these three cities in Odesa we are hearing that some energy infrastructure was hit again and that there are consequences meaning power is cut off in parts of the city and water supply here in Kyiv we heard an explosion earlier it seems that a rocket was shot down upon entering into the airspace above the city.
It fell onto a building non-residential building that's what the authorities have said one person has died and two were injured that's what we know so far a lot of missiles were flying again in the same pattern from a shot by Planes and many of them were intercepted we have heard that or the authorities have been saying that 15 Messiahs flying onto Kyiv have been intercepted but there's always a number of rockets that make it through and that hit targets within the country within the cities and Matthias what are we to make of the timing of these most recent strikes especially given that we had the announcement of the US and Germany sending tanks to Ukraine well it's very likely that this is a reaction to that the Russians.
They need time to prepare for this kind of attack but they did half-time considering that everybody was expecting this decision for some days now so it's pretty likely that they timed this attack to come after these decisions there have been furious at these decisions but of course, there's never any proof for these theories a lot of talks that both sides are preparing a so-called spring offensive.
Counter-offensive tells us a little bit more about the details in terms of what you're hearing yeah, of course, there are not really any details known and that is kind of in the nature of things that these plans are not disclosed before they are happening but we have been hearing about both military experts have said that spring would be a time when to expect another offensive by either side we have heard speculation literation might try to march on Kyiv again from the Belarusian side but that's at the moment seems to be very speculative Western Services have not seen the preparations necessary.
The mass deployments necessary in Belarus to make another attempt and of course within the Russian military somebody planning such an offensive would have to explain why this time it would work Kyiv is a big city it's difficult it would be very difficult to enter the city considering that Russia has tried for a month now to enter the much smaller town of bahut and although.
They have made some advances their capabilities are not that high for the Ukrainian side expectations are that there will be another counter-offensive when the weather conditions get better and possibly also after these tanks arrive because these tanks are of course critical to the planning tanks are what breaks through the Enemy Lines they are crucial in offensive operations Ukraine has so far said that it had been held back by having not enough tanks at the hand and not enough Advanced tanks at their hand and they could have achieved much more.
We will see of course whether this is true after the tanks arrive and we don't really know about the timeline for whether they will not have enough of them but one expectation is that the next Target that Ukraine might attempt at would be in the south in support region that would be a very valuable area for Ukraine to make gains because that's the connection between Crimea.
The Hassan obliges on the one hand and the Don bass on the other hand and it would disrupt Russian operations probably to March into there Matthias Bollinger and Keith thank you well several other countries will join the U.S and Germany in sending tanks to Ukraine the additional weapons could play a vital role in Kyiv's efforts to repel the Russian invasion but Russia is showing no signs of backing down analysts say it's laying the groundwork for a new offensive in the spring here's a look at some of the Weaponry that Russia has as a disposal since the end of World War II Russia has held.
The title the second strongest global Military after the United States before its invasion of Ukraine Russia claimed nearly 1 million Personnel 1500 combat aircraft 7 600 pieces of artillery and the largest tank force of any army in the world at 12 400 units Russia was a formidable force on paper at least following its failure to reach Kyiv in the first few weeks of the war many Western analysts have come to doubt that Russia's military was ever as strong as it claimed to be eventually President Putin Russia will realize.
The full extent of their strategic miscalculation outside of Moscow little is known about the current size of Russia's Arsenal but what it's brought out on the battlefield has been largely cataloged by investigative journalists Dutch researchers from the outlet oryx have documented that Russia has lost at least 69 aircraft 560 artillery pieces and 1 600 tanks the U.S military, however, claims that Russia may have lost as much as half of its tanks so far some analysts point to Russia's use in Ukraine of the t-62 tank as evidence that its Armory is in Dire Straits the t-62 is a relic introduced while the Berlin Wall was under construction.
This photo is from a Russian Museum of military history Ukraine's government has also claimed that Moscow will eventually run out of long-range missiles saying Russian factories cannot replenish the stockpiles yet their estimates from November were proven too optimistic when Russia stepped up its long-range bombing campaign in the last weeks of 2022 thank you building a bomb takes longer than dropping one but the Kremlin says weapons factories are working overtime quite literally to supply its invading forces Putin recently visited an arms manufacturer praising.
The workers all this can only Inspire confidence that Victory will be ours for Ukraine's part with so many of its factories and Depots destroyed its best chance to counter Russia's military might is to keep supplies flowing from its International partners and let's get more on that we are joined by Mike Martin senior visiting research fellow in the department of War studies at King's College in London uh welcome to the program and thank you so much for joining us how strongly do you think the Russian military is at the moment after nearly one year of its invasion of Ukraine I think the Russian military has got a lot of Manpower.
We've had sort of mobilization in the Autumn and we've got a further mobilization going on now much of that is poorly trained in poor morale.
They're severely lacking in Advanced Equipment of the type that Ukraine is Fielding Ukraine says and mentioned the previous mobilization Ukraine says that it thinks Russia plans to mobilize an additional 500 000 soldiers and so I'm wondering you know when you stack that up for example against the new tank commitments from the West to counter any fresh Russian offensive how do you think the calculus turns out there I think the answer this lies in the different styles of warfare so what Russia is trying to do is generate a huge Army as we said poorly trained and they will fight in a traditional you know trench style you know mud and blood and guts type of warfare whereas Ukraine has already demonstrated.
Its ability to conduct maneuver Warfare so destroying the Russian supply lines nipping around the back and that's exactly what these tanks will do so I think they will make a difference because they'll enable Ukraine to punch through the Russian lines and to maneuver behind them and Russia can't really respond to that because it doesn't have the level of training or the mechanization of its forces how quickly do you think that difference can be made from what you know about how long it takes to train the Ukrainians, for example, to deliver such Weaponry when do you think we could start to see results.
I think that really this political decision was made at the last safe moment obviously we're not going to train the Ukrainians on a full you know six-month training course or whatever what are the Bare Bones that need to be done the secret equipment that the West has in these tanks needs to be stripped out before they go to the Ukrainians than the Ukrainians need to be trained on them in somewhere like Poland you can probably do that in a couple of weeks and then the whole lot the crews and the tanks and the logistics pipeline need to move to Ukraine I think six to eight weeks is the minimum time frame that they can do that in realistically okay meantime Russia has called the Western tanks for Kyiv quote a blatant provocation what sort of possible retaliation do you think can be expected well usually what Russia does and you know Russia said everything's a blatant provocation I mean it invaded Ukraine.
What's going to happen is they're going to noise off like they're doing now and then they're going to bomb some civilian air you know blocks of flats or whatever in retaliation.
That's really impotence because there's nowhere that they can go militarily they can't up the stakes militarily they're not going to go into any neighboring countries right but Mike I just want to follow up and pick apart what you just said there because I mean one of the big concerns, for example, is that they could escalate toward nuclear perhaps in you know the form of a tactical nuclear weapon or that this conflict could indeed escalate to directly involve NATO members so given this most recent decision how high do you see those risks so is Russia going to allow the conflict to widen into say Poland which is covered by the NATO Article 5 security guarantee that drags in America and all the other Western States absolutely not that Russia is absolutely very keen as NATO is to avoid that would be the end of the war in NATO's favor and in terms of nuclear.
We've seen nuclear threats from Russia throughout the conflict and they've tailed off recently and the way they the reason they've tailed off recently is that the West called their Bluff and said you don't want to use nuclear the Cold War the rules still exist of mutually assured destruction so stop talking about nuclear and Russia has stopped talking about it okay Mike Martin senior visiting research fellow in the department of War study at King's College London thank you so much for joining us to share that expertise in that perspective thank you Germany's defense minister Boris Pastorius is visiting Bundeswehr troops in the first time since taking on his new role.
The minister met with the soldiers in the Alton Grabo military training area in the Eastern German state of Saxony Anhalt he confirmed that german-made leopard tanks are due to arrive in Ukraine sometime in late March or early April and on-site for us there we have DW's Benjamin alvarez-gruber.
Benjamin thanks for joining us how has Germany's decision to send tanks to Ukraine gone down there we understand the defense minister gave a statement what more did he have to say he said he once again talked about the criticism that the German Chancellor was too late with the decision to send the German tanks and he said exactly what you just mentioned that they could be in Ukraine by the end of March or early April that there will be the training now there and the idea of this visit that comes on his seventh day in the office is talking to the soldiers.
He said that was very important to talk to them to know exactly what the problems are that they are facing and to get this inside he oversaw several exercises shooting exercises with him a smaller gun with rifles but also with the Puma that's an infantry vehicle of the German Armed Forces to then say that it's important to keep in touch and to also help them for everything that they need handing over weapons to Ukraine you know there are some reports that could cause gaps in already existing replacement deficits have the defense minister clarified how he might handle that and those are not just reports.
He said that it's a pretty difficult balance that he has that those are conflicting goals on one side as you rightly mentioned to get new weapons for the bundles was also to try to reduce the time for them to get this new weapon system one of the questions was also if Germany was already getting the weapons that it already had sent to Ukraine and of course when it comes to the leper tanks Germany will send it to Ukraine that's also the big question what Germany will do to get them as soon as possible he said that he will try to find that balance on one side of getting that new weapon system and on the other side of Supply in Ukraine with weapons.
He also mentioned the case and said that it's not possible to tell Ukraine that Germany will not supply them with weapons anymore as they first need to take care of the Bundesliga stocks but he said that it is a problem and we have seen for many many years now with the status of the bonus where that many types of equipment are still needed for the Armed Forces so it's a really really important task for him but as I just mentioned he has been in office for a week and he wanted to give the soldiers the sense that he will give them everything that they need at the same time while supporting Ukraine also to defend itself against Russia TW's Benjamin Alvarez Gruber in Alton Grabo Germany thank you for your reporting.