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NATO allies have promised Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, dozens of tanks. But when those tanks will actually be deployed — and whether they will arrive in time to repel a looming Russian offensive — is still unclear. In a Sunday night address, Zelensky called for their delivery to be expedited. “We have to make time our weapon,” he said. Fourteen Challenger 2 tanks promised by the British government could be in the country as soon as late March, but the soldiers who will use them have to be trained first. Ukrainian troops arrived in Britain yesterday to begin learning how to operate the tanks, as well as how to use them to fight as a unit. Some of the German-made Leopard 2s pledged by Germany and other European allies could arrive around the same time — but they may not all arrive right away. The speed at which they do will depend on how many tanks are immediately available and how many will need to be refurbished and reprogrammed. American-made M1A2 Abrams tanks are m...

Russian forces wrestled for control of villages in eastern Ukraine near the city of Bakhmut over the weekend, the latest flash point as Moscow tries to seize the whole of the eastern region of Donbas. The status of the village of Blahodatne is in dispute. Ukraine said yesterday that its soldiers had repelled attacks on it and on several other settlements in the area. But a day earlier, the Wagner private military company, fighting on Moscow’s behalf, claimed that it had captured the village. Russia’s defense ministry has not confirmed the report, the times learnt. Blahodatne lies between Soledar, a salt-mining town that Russian forces recently captured after weeks of intense fighting, and a road that runs north from the city of Bakhmut. The road serves as a crucial supply line for Ukrainian forces defending the city. Moscow aims to encircle Bakhmut, cut off its supply routes and then force the city’s defenders to withdraw. Casualties of war: Many civilians have followed a directiv...

Russia launched 55 missiles at targets across Ukraine yesterday, with strikes killing at least 11 people and wounding another 11, the authorities said. A total of 47 missiles were shot down by Ukrainian forces. A day earlier, Germany and the U.S. pledged to send dozens of battle tanks to Ukraine, a major step up in Western military support. Since October, Russia has fought a campaign to target infrastructure and cripple Ukraine’s power grid. The barrages have sometimes come after Ukrainian successes. “The main goal is energy facilities, providing Ukrainians with light and heat,” Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, said in a post on Telegram. For the past week, Russia’s Air Force has been conducting exercises north of Ukraine in Belarus, keeping Ukraine on heightened alert. Air attack sirens have sounded countrywide each time Russian planes take to the air. The war has raised the influence of Central and Eastern European countries with negative views of Russia, amplified c...

Geopolitics has been everywhere at the Australian Open and will be at center stage in the women’s final, which takes place on Saturday, as Elena Rybakina, a native Russian who became a citizen of Kazakhstan five years ago in exchange for financial support, and Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus go head-to-head. Sabalenka, like other Russian and Belarusian players, has not been permitted to represent her home country — part of the wrangling by professional tennis as it tries to balance its stated opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with its hopes of rising above the quagmire of international politics. Earlier this week, videos surfaced of Novak Djokovic’s father, Srdjan, posing with fans who waved a Russian flag and wore the pro-war “Z” logo, and voicing his support for Russia. The week before, organizers of the tournament had prohibited fans from exhibiting any form of the Russian or Belarusian flags or other symbols that supported Russia’s war in Ukraine. Geopolitics: The player ...

President Biden announced yesterday that the U.S. would send 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine to help it defend against Russian invaders and that Germany would follow through by contributing 14 Leopard 2 tanks, freeing other allies to send their own. He emphasized that the buildup was not meant to expand the war into Russia. Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, who has pressed for the tanks to counter Russia’s advantage in arms and troops, expressed gratitude for the U.S. decision. Writing on Twitter, he said, “Today the free world is united as never before for a common goal — liberation of Ukraine.” Zelensky has called for 300 tanks in total. The Pentagon had been reluctant to send the Abrams tanks, in part because they are exceptionally complex machines that are challenging to operate and maintain. As it is, officials have said it could take a year or even longer for them to actually reach the battlefield in Ukraine. The pledges could unlock more aid ahead of an expected esca...

More tanks for Ukraine as Biden administration plans to send up to 50 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, U.S. officials disclosed yesterday, in what would be a major step in arming Kyiv as it tries to seize back its territory from Russia. It could take years before those tanks reach Ukraine, but the announcement would clear the way for Germany and other countries to send their battle tanks. The plan to send the Abrams tanks comes after a testy confrontation last week, during a NATO defense chiefs’ meeting, over the refusal by Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to send Leopard tanks, which many military experts believe could be a decisive weapon in Ukrainian hands. German officials have privately insisted that the country would send the tanks only if the U.S. agreed to send its own M1 Abrams tanks. Publicly, American and German officials have denied that the two issues were linked, but the German news media reported last night that Scholz had decided to send the tanks. The chancellor will a...

Can Germany be a great military power again? When Russia ann exed Crimea in 2014, German military planners began to consider the sudden possibility of a large land war in Europe — one that would require German soldiers to defend European territory. Those fears have grown more acute, resulting, last year, in the announcement of plans for the largest jump in German military spending since World War II. Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, skepticism of the merits of militarystrength had enabled a long post-Cold War process of disarmament in Germany. Now, German leaders are vowing to transform the country into a military power capable of taking responsibility for Europe’s security. But German society, in which the country’s Nazi past looms large, remains hesitant. The fact that German soldiers have repeatedly been implicated in high-profile cases of right-wing extremism has not helped ease this discomfort. Russian propagandists were clearly trying to hit a nerve when they responded ...

In a speech marking the date of a 1919 convention signing that united Ukraine into a single independent state, Volodymyr Zelensky, the country’s president, called on citizens to remain unified. “ We're each together, no matter where we were born and where we grew up, ” he said. “ Say moment I'll defend my Ukraine. My unity. ” Zelensky’s soaring rhetoric has come a critical tool as he seeks to intoxicate support among Ukrainians and internationally. But he has failed lately to broker more Western military support, after European allies were unfit to reach an agreement on supplying the country with further tanks. Though Germany has refused to send German- made Leopard tanks from its own stock, the country’s foreign minister said yesterday that it was ready to authorize Poland to send its own tanks, if asked. Germany and Poland both plan to begin training Ukrainians in their use. Since winter has set in, neither Moscow nor Kyiv has made major battlegr...

The Atiku/Okowa Campaign Council in Osun State has backed Governor Ademola Adeleke on his pronouncement that the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar will win South-West landslide in the February 25 election, dismissing the statement credited to the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign Council in the state as a mere ranting of charlatans still lost in the dust of their ignorance. In a statement signed by its Director-General, Hon. Sunday Bisi on Friday, the Osun Atiku/Okowa Campaign said "it is a pity that the APC is still living in denial of the resolve of Nigerians, particularly the Yorubas to disembark from the misrule that characterized it, echoing the message of Governor Adeleke that the electorate in the South-West will deliver a resounding victory to Atiku/Okowa in next month's poll. Hon. Bisi added that a vast majority of voters in the South-West have preference for the candidature of Atiku on the strength of his capacity to get t...

Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand prime Newminister, said earlier today that she would not seek re-election and would step down on Feb. 7. Labour Party lawmakers will elect a new leader of the party — and the country — in three days’ time. In a tearful announcement, Ardern said she did not feel emotionally equipped to complete another term. “I believe that leading a country is the most privileged job anyone could ever have, but also one of the more challenging,” she said. “You cannot and should not do it unless you have a full tank plus a bit in reserve for those unexpected challenges.” Ardern became prime minister in 2017 and won re-election in 2020, largely on the strength of New Zealand’s approach to Covid. Her compassionate response to a massacre at two mosques in Christchurch in 2019 solidified her image as a global liberal icon. But her party has since fallen sharply in the polls amid economic troubles and some highly publicized instances of violent crime. Analysis: Ben Thomas,...