Closing summary
It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has said Germany is not blocking the export of Leopard 2 tanks. Pressure is building on Germany to supply its German-made Leopard tanks to Ukraine, after failing to take a decision at a keenly anticipated international defence summit at the US military base of Ramstein in south-west Germany on Friday. The re-export of tanks manufactured in Germany has to be approved by its economic ministry.
Borrell also outlined the EU’s new military aid package to Ukraine worth €500m, after the bloc’s 27 foreign ministers met in Brussels on Monday. The €500m package was approved along with a further €45m for the EU’s military training mission for Ukraine. Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, said his country would not block the EU move.
The German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock’s comment on Sunday that her country would not “stand in the way” of Poland sending Leopard tanks to Ukraine has caused some confusion in Berlin. For now, it remains unclear whether her remarks are indicative of a shift in the government’s position or merely a Green party attempt to correct the chancellor Olaf Scholz’s bungled communication strategy.
Poland has reiterated that it is ready to send tanks to Ukraine without Germany’s consent. The Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said his government would seek permission from Berlin to send its Leopard tanks to Ukraine, but described that consent as of “secondary importance”. But a German government spokesperson said Berlin had not received a request from Poland or any other country to authorise the transfer of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
The Kremlin has warned that the people of Ukraine will “pay the price” if the west decides to send tanks to support Kyiv. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the splits in Europe over whether to provide tanks to Kyiv showed there was increasing “nervousness” within the Nato alliance. Peskov also dismissed Washington’s announcement that it was planning to impose sanctions on the Russian private mercenary Wagner Group.
Russian forces continue to “endure operational deadlock and heavy casualties”, according to the UK Ministry of Defence’s latest intelligence update. The report also says new disciplinary measures introduced by Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s chief of the general staff and newly appointed commander in Ukraine, have been met with “sceptical feedback”, in particular in response to the decision to ban soldiers from wearing beard.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has said Moscow was willing to negotiate with Ukraine in the early months of the war but the US and other western nations advised Kyiv against it. Lavrov was speaking during his visit to South Africa, where he met with foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, a month before the South African military is set to host a joint military exercise with Russia and China on its east coast.
Russia has said it is downgrading diplomatic relations with the Nato member Estonia, accusing Tallinn of “total Russophobia”. Russia’s foreign ministry said this was in response to an Estonian move to reduce the size of the Russian embassy in Tallinn. In solidarity with Estonia, Latvia has announced it will downgrade its diplomatic ties with Russia and inform its Russian ambassador to leave the country by 24 February.
Germany has begun to move its Patriot air defence systems into Polish territory, close to the Ukrainian border, where they will be deployed to prevent stray missile strikes. Berlin’s offer to deploy three of its Patriot units in Poland came after two men were killed by a stray Ukrainian missile that struck the Polish village of Przewodow in the region last November.
Andrey Medvedev, a former commander of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group who recently fled to Norway, has been apprehended by police, he told the Guardian on Monday. Medvedev’s Norwegian lawyer, Brynjulf Risnes said that the police decided to apprehend Medvedev on Sunday evening after a “strong disagreement” with the former Wagner soldier over living conditions at the safe house where he had been living since he arrived in Norway.
It is “too early” to talk about a potential 2024 re-election bid for Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin has said. The Russian president “has not made any statements on the matter”, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. In 2021, Putin signed a law that will allow him to run for the presidency twice more in his lifetime, potentially keeping him in office until 2036.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said he will not support Sweden’s Nato membership bid after a protest in Stockholm at the weekend that included the burning of a copy of the Qur’an. Protests in the Swedish capital on Saturday have heightened tensions with Turkey at a time when the Nordic country needs Ankara’s backing to gain entry to the military alliance.
A former top FBI official has been charged with violating US sanctions on Russia by receiving concealed payments from a Russian oligarch, prosecutors said. Charles McGonigal, who led the FBI’s counterintelligence division in New York from 2016 to 2018, was arrested on Saturday. He is charged with working with a former Soviet diplomat-turned-Russian interpreter on behalf of Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire.
Germany ‘not blocking export of Leopard tanks’, says EU’s Borrell
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has said Germany is not blocking the export of Leopard 2 tanks as Berlin faces mounting pressure to supply the heavy weapons that Kyiv has been calling for.
Berlin failed to take a decision on the re-export of German-made tanks to Ukraine at Friday’s international defence summit at the US military base of Ramstein in south-west Germany.
Asked about the issue, Borrell told a news conference today:
It seems Germany’s not going to ban the exporting of these weapons, if some EU member states who have them, want to send them.
He also outlined details of the EU’s newly approved military aid package to Ukraine, worth €500m, plus a further €45m for a military training mission for Ukrainian forces.
That brings the EU’s total amount of military support for Ukraine to €3.6bn, he said, adding that the total figure of the bloc’s support to Ukraine – including military, financial, economic and humanitarian aid – now stands at €49bn.
Updated
