So far they have dug at least 40 dead from the rubble of the Dnipro apartment block. Civilians all, children among them. As many are still missing after one of the most deadly attacks on civilians in Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine. In all, some 100 missiles were launched by Russia over the weekend at cities and infrastructure throughout Ukraine, including in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa and Lviv.
There is no respite after the briefest of festive seasons. The ground war continues remorselessly. The industrial town of Soledar appears to have fallen to Russia after heavy fighting, the latter’s first significant advance in months, but at a heavy price. The US estimates that some 4,000 of the 50,000 Wagner mercenaries who make up a significant part of the Russian forces have been killed on the Soledar-Bakhmut front line. Moscow is reported to be preparing another 500,000-strong call-up ahead of an expected summer offensive.
That prospect has added real urgency to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s renewed appeals for more and heavier Western weapons. Ukraine’s most senior commander, Gen Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, has said it needs at least some 300 Western tanks and 600 armoured vehicles to tip the balance in battles for Ukraine’s eastern provinces. The UK’s weekend announcement that it is offering 14 Challenger 2 tanks and some 30 AS90 self-propelled guns is an important political gesture. It provides political cover for Germany’s hesitating Chancellor Olaf Scholz to do likewise by supplying, or allowing others to supply, the German Leopard 2 tank used by 13 armies across Europe.
Poland and Finland want to send Leopard 2s, but need supplier Germany’s permission for their re-export, while France and the US have also stepped up with more armoured vehicles.
At issue is not just a strengthening of the West’s commitment to Kyiv with more weapons, but, say the Russians, a qualitative shift in the nature of that support, the supply of heavy battlefield weapons, changing the nature of Nato’s engagement. Scholz is said to fear that such a shift – crudely put, a shift from supply of defensive to offensive hardware – could be seen as legitimising a Russian escalation with the danger of direct Nato-Russian confrontation, or even resort by Putin to nuclear weapons. Domestically Scholz treads a fine line – his own party is reluctant, and recent polls suggest a majority of Germans oppose supplying Ukraine with the tanks.
But the danger in allowing Putin and his implied threats to set the limits of Western support for Ukraine will be an act of self-emasculation for Germany and its Nato allies that will only facilitate prolonged stalemate on the battlefield. Short of the West’s red line of engaging directly with Russia, it must continue to arm Kyiv.