Ukraine war: Can NATO tanks and training turn the tide?
As the defense chiefs of 54 nations gathered Friday to chart the next steps forward in repelling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reiterated the urgency of their mission.
“Russia is regrouping, recruiting, and trying to reequip,” he warned, urging colleagues to “dig deeper” in their efforts to bolster Kyiv’s defenses with weapons and training as the first anniversary of Russia’s war in Ukraine – and an expected spring assault – approaches.
He then patched in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy via video, who noted that the assembled Ukraine Defense Contact Group has done so much for his country that it would be “absolutely just” to tender “hundreds of thank-you’s.”
“But,” he added in a pointed proviso, “hundreds of thank-you’s are not hundreds of tanks.”
For days before –
