RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany – The United States dispatched 40 allies on Tuesday to provide Ukraine with long-term military aid in what could become a protracted war against Russia, and Germany said it would send dozens of armored anti-aircraft vehicles. It was a major policy shift for a country that has wavered from fear of provoking Russia.
The statement by Germany, Europe’s largest economy and one of Russia’s most important Western trading partners, was among the many signals Tuesday that the war escalated further and was disappointing. for diplomacy.
Germany’s change of arms was also seen as a strong affirmation of a powerful message of the Biden administration, which has said it wants to see Russia not only defeated in Ukraine but severely weakened after the conflict President Vladimir V. Putin started two months ago.
The influx of more Western weapons into Ukraine – including artillery, armed drones, tanks and ammunition – is another sign of a war Putin hopes will divide. Western rivals, has instead drawn them closer together.
US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd J. Austin III, spoke to civilian and uniformed officials Tuesday at the US Air Force base in Ramstein, Germany, where he convened defense. officials from 40 allied countries.
“No one is fooled” by “Putin’s fake claims about Donbas,” Austin said, referring to the eastern region of Ukraine, where Russia has recently refocused its attacks. “Russia’s aggression is indisputable and so are Russia’s atrocities,” he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov said on Tuesday that the influx of heavy weapons from Western countries is pushing Ukraine to sabotage peace talks with Moscow, which show no concrete signs of progress.
Lavrov said after meeting in Moscow with the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, who is making the most active diplomatic effort to prevent war in Moscow. “If that continues, the negotiations will yield nothing.”
On Monday, Lavrov revived the specter of nuclear war, as Putin has done at least twice before. Mr. Lavrov said that while such a possibility was “unacceptable” for Russia, the risk was increased because NATO had “engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and armed that proxy.”
“The risk is pretty big,” said Mr said in an interview with Channel One, Russia’s state television network.
“I don’t want them to be blown out of proportion,” he said. But “danger is serious, real – it’s not to be underestimated.”
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, called Lavrov’s remarks a sign that “Moscow senses defeat in Ukraine.” John F. Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, called them “clearly useless, not constructive.”
“A nuclear war cannot be won and it should not be waged,” he said. “There’s no reason for the current conflict in Ukraine to get to that point.”
Mr. Austin said defense officials gathered at Ramstein Air Base – from Australia, Belgium, the UK, Italy, Israel and other countries – had agreed to form what he called the Ukraine Contact Group and to meet monthly to ensure they “strengthen Ukraine’s military for the long haul. “
“We will continue to move the world,” said Mr. Austin, to strengthen the Ukrainian army.
German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht announcement at the meeting that Berlin would send Ukraine up to 50 armed vehicles, known as Flakpanzer Gepard, designed to shoot down planes but could also hit targets on the ground.
According to manufacturer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, although no longer used by Germany, they have been acquired by Jordan, Qatar, Romania and Brazil, where they were deployed to protect stadiums from machine attacks. drones in international tournaments, according to producer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann.
The German government had previously cited various reasons for avoiding shipping such heavy weapons to Ukraine, including the lack of availability, that training Ukrainian soldiers to operate them was time-consuming and that Russia could could be provoked into a broader conflict.
But German officials changed course under growing pressure from the conservative opposition in Berlin, and from members of the ruling coalition. Germany has also supplied Ukraine with man-portable anti-ship missiles and surface-to-air defense missiles, some from former East German stockpiles.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, who accompanied Austin to Ukraine last weekend, confirmed on Tuesday that the United States would support the Ukrainian military in pushing Russian forces out of eastern Ukraine if that’s what it is. President Volodymyr Zelensky wanted to do. .
“If that’s how they define their goal as a sovereign, democratic, independent country, then that’s what we’re going to support,” Blinken said at a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing. The Senate.
After meeting Putin at the Kremlin, Mr Guterres said he had reached an agreement “in principle” to allow the United Nations and the Red Cross to evacuate civilians from a steel plant besieged by Russia in Russia. Port of Mariupol, southern Ukraine. , where they had been hiding for days with Ukrainian fighters. But there is no evidence that the meeting produced any diplomatic progress toward ending the war.
Before the meeting, Putin asserted that Guterres had “misunderstood” the situation in Mariupol and he asserted that Russia had operated possible humanitarian corridors outside the city – an assertion denied by Ukrainian officials. negate. to get the civilians out of the city that had fallen to the threats of Russian forces.
Russo-Ukrainian War: Main developments
Mr Putin told Mr Guterres that he hoped the continuation of peace talks with Ukraine would yield “some positive results”, according to the Kremlin. However, Putin insists that Russia will not sign a security guarantee agreement with Ukraine without resolving territorial issues in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 and in the Donbas, which Russia has recognized. The two breakaway regions are independent.
Amid the escalating East-West economic conflict from the war, Poland’s state-owned gas company on Tuesday said Russia’s state gas company had announced a “complete suspension” of supplies. natural gas to Poland through a large pipeline.
Poland, a NATO member and a major conduit for Western weapons to enter Ukraine, gets more than 45 percent of its natural gas from Russia, and cutting that supply could reduce its ability to heat homes. and run the business.
In addition to spreading suffering and death across Ukraine, the invasion triggered the largest exodus of European refugees since World War II.
More than 5 million people, 90% of them women and children, have left Ukraine since the Russian invasion on February 24, according to the United Nations. More than 7.7 million people have been displaced from their homes due to the conflict, but have remained in the country.
The United Nations on Tuesday forecast the number of refugees could grow to 8.3 million by the end of the year and asked donors for an extra $1.25 billion to fund soaring humanitarian needs. in Ukraine.
In another worrisome sign of the potential for contagion from the war, the explosions rocked Transnistria, a small Moscow-backed breakaway republic in Ukraine’s southwestern neighbor, Moldova, in second day in a row.
It is not yet clear who is behind the explosion. Authorities in Transnistria blamed Ukraine, while Ukraine accused Russia of orchestrating the explosions.
Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, told reporters there was “tension between different forces in the regions, interested in destabilizing the situation.”
At least 12,000 Russian troops are stationed in Transnistria, just 25 kilometers from Ukraine’s main port, Odesa. Western officials have expressed concern that Putin could create an excuse to send more troops into the territory, in the same way he did before Russian forces entered Crimea and the Donbas.
John Ismay reports from Ramstein Air Force Base, Christopher F. Schuetze from Berlin and Michael Levenson from New York. Reporting was contributed by Ivan Nechepurenko from Tblisi, Georgia, Michael Schwirtz from Orikhiv, Ukraine, Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva, Michael Crowley and Edward Wong from Washington, Matthew Mpoke Bigg from London and Cora Engelbrecht from Krakow, Poland.
