Austin to try to persuade new German defense minister to send tanks to Kyiv

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will press Germany’s new Defense Minister Boris Pistorius on January 19 to allow for the transfer of German-made tanks to Ukraine, US officials said, Report informs referring to Reuters.

Germany will allow German-made tanks to be sent to Ukraine to help its defense against Russia if the United States agrees to send its own tanks, a German government source told Reuters.

But US officials publicly and privately insist that Washington has no plans to send US-made tanks to Ukraine for now, arguing that they would too difficult for Kyiv to maintain and would require a huge logistical effort to simply run.

"The secretary (of defense) will be pressing the Germans on this," one senior US defense official said.

The US official said supplying Ukraine with German-made Leopard tanks made the most sense as a number of countries already had them and were willing to transfer them quickly.

The United States has committed roughly $24 billion to help Ukraine to defend itself against Russian forces.

A second US official said President Joe Biden's administration was set to approve a new aid package to Ukraine, worth more than $2 billion.

The package, which could be announced as early as January 20 during a meeting of defense leaders at an airbase in Germany, would likely include Stryker armored vehicles for Kyiv, but not M1 Abrams tanks.