2 NATO powerhouses are creating an armored-vehicle coalition to support Ukraine

A Leopard 2 tank at the Field Marshal Rommel Barracks in Augustdorf, Germany, in February 2023. AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File

• Two NATO members will lead a new armored-vehicle coalition to help Ukraine.
• Poland’s deputy prime minister said that it will focus on main battle tanks.
• Ukraine is struggling with a lack of weaponry and ammunition as Russia ramps up its own production.

Two major NATO member states announced that they are activating an armored-vehicle coalition to aid Ukraine’s fightback against Russia’s invasion.

Poland’s deputy prime minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, said on Monday that on March 26 Poland and Germany will activate an armored capability coalition for Ukraine.

He said at a press conference that it will focus on main battle tanks, Polish news outlet TVP World reported.

Kosiniak-Kamysz did not elaborate on the specifics of what this means for Ukraine, including whether it will see more armored vehicles and tanks being sent to Ukraine any time soon.

But he said that Poland and Germany would lead the coalition, and that other countries had signed up, including the UK, Sweden, and Italy.

“It is one of the most important coalitions that have been established,” he said, according to TVP World.

The two European countries play a major role in NATO.

Poland, which neighbors Ukraine, was the member state that spent the most on defense as a proportion of its GDP in 2023, at 3.9%.

Germany, meanwhile, is the EU’s most populous country and has played a leading role in training Ukrainian troops.

The new coalition is one of many ways that European countries are supporting Ukraine.

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, European nations have sent Ukraine weaponry and funding, and have also helped to train its soldiers.

But despite the ongoing support, Ukraine is struggling with a lack of ammunition and weaponry.

Ukrainian soldiers say they can’t hit Russian targets because they don’t have enough ammunition and need to ration it.

In January, Ukraine’s defense minister said his forces could only fire a third of what Russia could fire on a daily basis.

Ukraine has been making more of its own weaponry, but so has Russia, which is a larger country and can do so on a larger scale.

Last month, the White House said that Ukraine’s shortages handed Russia its first big victory in months, with Ukrainian forces withdrawing from the eastern town of Avdiivka after soldiers “had to ration ammunition due to dwindling supplies as a result of congressional inaction.”

Additional financial support from the US is being held up by Republican lawmakers, in a move criticized by President Joe Biden.

European countries are struggling to plug the gap, with nations saying that they don’t have enough weaponry and ammunition to spare, and that not enough new equipment is being made to meet Ukraine’s needs.

Other coalitions of support for Ukraine already exist.

For example, some NATO militaries, led by the UK and Norway, launched a coalition in December to help Ukraine build up its naval strength.

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