UKRAINE WAITING FOR PLEDGED EQUIPMENT
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine needs more time to begin a planned counteroffensive because its allies have not yet delivered enough of the equipment they have pledged, raising fresh questions over the country’s plans for a military operation that Western officials have said could be its best chance to retake territory seized by Russia.
In an interview that aired on the BBC on Thursday, Zelenskyy said that in terms of personnel and motivation, Ukraine’s forces were “ready” for the operation, but that they were still waiting for some military hardware, specifically armored vehicles, which had been arriving “in batches.” NATO member states have already sent billions of dollars in tanks, armored vehicles, drones, missiles and launchers and ammunition to Ukraine.
With the weapons that Ukraine has already received, “we can go forward, and, I think, be successful,” Zelenskyy said in the interview. “But we’d lose a lot of people. I think that’s unacceptable. So we need to wait. We still need a bit more time.”
It was not clear whether Zelenskyy’s comments were an attempt at misdirection.
For weeks, Ukrainian officials have said that they were in the final stages of planning for the spring counteroffensive, while not disclosing when or where it might start.
Meanwhile, the U.S. ambassador to South Africa accused the country Thursday of providing weapons and ammunition to Russia for its war in Ukraine via a cargo ship linked to a sanctioned company that docked secretly at a naval base near Cape Town in December.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said an investigation into the visit by a Russian vessel named Lady R to his nation’s main naval base was already under way behind the scenes with the help of U.S. intelligence services before Ambassador Reuben Brigety went public that the cargo was weapons and ammunition.