NATO Discuss Weapons For Ukraine As Tensions Rise

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

DAVOS/BRUSSELS (Worthy News) – The NATO military alliance was to meet on Friday to discuss military support for Ukraine amid internal tensions after a new appeal for weapons from Ukraine’s embattled leader.

Faced with relentless attacks from Russia and a recently forced withdrawal of his troops from the eastern town of Soledar, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his frustration while addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“The time the free world uses to think is used by the terrorist state to kill,” he explained. The remark was interpreted as a request for Germany to hurry along a delivery of its much-coveted Leopard tanks.

Germany’s government has been unwilling to send the vehicles unless the United States commits to providing its own Abrams battle tanks, well-informed sources said. Britain recently pledged to send a number of its tanks to Kyiv.

However, the secretary-general of the NATO military alliance tried to ease tensions by saying in Davos that Ukraine could receive “more support, more advanced support, heavier weapons, and more modern weapons.”

MILITARY EQUIPMENT

Jens Stoltenberg stressed that NATO members would on Friday discuss “what military equipment” could be sent to Kyiv.

The debate about weapons also came as Zelensky mourned more than a dozen people who died in a helicopter crash in a Kyiv suburb.

He has said there are “no accidents at wartime” after 14 people were confirmed dead in Wednesday’s crash at Brovary, outside Kyiv, near a kindergarten. One of the 14 who died was a child, authorities later said. Previous reports spoke of 17 people dead, including several children.

Ukraine has not claimed Russian involvement, but Zelensky told the World Economic Forum in Davos that the tragedy resulted from the war. Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky, the president’s longtime adviser, died alongside several colleagues.

Monastyrsky, 42, is the highest-profile Ukrainian casualty since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year.

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