On Thursday, US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz released a joint statement announcing commitments of infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine. On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron promised his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, to supply Kiev with an unspecified number of AMX-10 RC armored combat vehicles.
The trilateral decision "clarifies Western support for Ukraine for a potential offensive in the months to come," Ulrich Speck, a German foreign policy analyst, said as quoted by the New York Times on Friday.
"And it signals Moscow that we’re not on the trajectory to peace negotiations soon."
The Biden administration officially announced its largest to-date package of military assistance to Ukraine worth $3.75 billion on Friday. It includes Bradley fighting vehicles, surface-to-air missiles, howitzer artillery guns, mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAPS) light vehicles, among other weaponry.
"The Ukrainians are planning to do more offensive operations against dug-in Russian positions, so getting better infantry fighting vehicles to get close to defensive positions is important," Rob Lee, a military analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told The New York Times.
6 January 2023, 18:08 GMT
However, the newspaper said the new Western military equipment might become a logistics burden for Ukrainian troops, since the vehicles all have different parts and use different ammunition types.
The new US aid package includes $225 million for Ukrainian military modernization and $682 million for US allies and partners on NATO’s eastern flank in Europe.
UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Friday that the United Nations would like to see an end to the conflict in Ukraine, amid the new US weapons package.
The Russian Embassy in Germany said on Friday that the decision to send Ukraine more heavy weapons shows that Western countries are not interested in finding a peaceful solution to the Ukraine conflict.