To extend offensive, Ukraine demands tanks but says Germany won’t help

“Germany needs to understand that the timeline for the end of the war is dependent on its position,” Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Zelensky, told The Washington Post in an interview on Tuesday.

A sweeping counteroffensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region has forced Russian soldiers into a hasty retreat and returned more than 1,100 square miles to Ukrainian control, a potential turning point more than six months into the war.

Kyiv believes the requested heavy armor — including battle tanks and personnel carriers — could help shift that turning point into a tipping point. Ukrainian officials are now urging their Western partners to provide them with more weapons immediately.

“The faster we receive this or that weapon from Germany, the faster Germany finally breaks this feeling of closeness with Russia, the faster the war will end,” Podolyak said. He said that Ukraine is specifically asking for armored personnel vehicles and tanks to be able to support its battlefield momentum.

But Germany, so far, has been unwilling to grant the request. The German government did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday night, but has emphasized it is coordinating its response with allies.

“No country has delivered Western-built infantry fighting vehicles or main battle tanks so far,” German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said in an event in Berlin this week. “We have agreed with our partners that Germany will not take such action unilaterally.”

Russian troops in big retreat as Ukraine offensive advances in Kharkiv

In a Monday news conference with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, Chancellor Olaf Scholz listed what he called “extensive” German weaponry already supplied, saying it had been crucial in the success of the counteroffensive.

Virtually no outside nations have provided tanks to Ukraine, instead sending aging models such as the M113, an armored personnel carrier with tracks that was first fielded by the United States in the 1960s. Denmark provided 54 M113s that were upgraded by Germany and then sent to Ukraine, according to the German defense ministry.

Poland and the Czech Republic have sent a few hundred Soviet-era T-72 tanks to Ukraine, with Germany promising to backfill their supplies. There is little doubt now that Ukraine could make use of more modern equipment, even if it would require further training.

On Monday, a senior U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon, said that the Ukrainians have shown in their counteroffensive that they are “quite effective” while using armored vehicles.

“So clearly, that kind of capability is important,” the defense official said, adding that the United States does not have…