WAR IN UKRAINE: January 28, 2023
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 339
Ukrainian forces were engaged in fierce fighting with Russian troops in several hot spots in the east, where Moscow has been pressing with increasing urgency amid Western pledges of modern tank deliveries for Kyiv - RFE/RL
Poland announced that it will send an additional 60 tanks to Ukraine, following media reports that NATO members will donate around 100 German-manufactured Leopard 2 tanks.
Western countries will deliver more than 300 tanks to Ukraine, Kyiv’s ambassador to France said Friday. “As of today, numerous countries have officially confirmed their agreement to deliver 321 heavy tanks to Ukraine,” Vadym Omelchenko told French TV station and CNN affiliate BFM television.
Ukraine's government has approved a resolution banning officials from travelingabroad, after a lawmaker was expelled from the ruling Servant of the People party for being in Thailand without parliament's knowledge.
For the first time a Russian delegation was not invited to a ceremony marking the liberation of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp in modern-day Poland. Russia is usually represented at the event, as the camp in occupied Poland was liberated by the Soviet Army. But this year, following Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum declined to invite Russian officials and its director likened the Ukraine war to the horrors of the Holocaust - BBC
Ben Barry, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (ISS), tells the BBC that Western tanks will make a difference in Russia’s war in Ukraine. But the former British Army Brigadier also warns that the pledges made so far are unlikely to prove decisive. Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former colonel in the British Army's Royal Tank Regiment, says numbers do matter for a breakthrough. An armoured brigade for a significant offensive operation would normally include at least 70 tanks. So more than 100 Western battle tanks could make a big difference, he says.
The West’s decision to finally send tanksto Ukraine has caused some to ask the uncomfortable question: Does this mean that NATO is now in direct conflict with Russia? This narrative, which is being pushed hard by the Kremlin, undoubtedly helps Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies deflect from the fact that Russia launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine and illegally occupied parts of a sovereign state - CNN