The promises of deliveries of heavy tanks will be kept by the Europeans, while Berlin has specified that the first Leopard 2 armored vehicles will be supplied to kyiv probably in April. A welcome announcement at a time when Russia has been claiming several advances, particularly on the Donbass front, for several weeks. Ukraine also fears a large Moscow offensive around February 24, which will mark the first anniversary of the start of the Russian invasion. And the fighting continues between the armed forces of the two countries, especially in eastern Ukraine, the region where the civilian victims are the most numerous.
Here is a point in four infographics on this new week of tensions, ending this Friday, the 352nd day of conflict, when the shadow of a new large-scale Russian offensive worries Ukrainians and Europeans.
Heavy tanks delivered within a few months
kyiv will have to be patient before receiving the heavy tanks promised by many European countries. Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark announced on Tuesday the supply “in the coming months” of a hundred Ukrainian Leopard 1 A5s to help repel the Russian forces which claim to be carrying out a “successful” offensive in eastern Ukraine.
For its part, Berlin expects to be able to train with its allies and provide Ukraine with a first battalion of Leopard 2 tanks by April, the German Defense Minister said on Wednesday in Warsaw. “I think we can deliver at least one battalion in the first four months of this year, three months maybe. And then we have to go as fast as possible, of course,” Boris Pistorius told reporters, who said that it was 31 tanks, which corresponds to a Ukrainian battalion.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, in the evening, “thanked” these three countries for “their relevant support”. The Leopard 1s that will be sent, older than the Leopard 2s, come from stock and will be refurbished.
Donbass under pressure
Ukraine is worried about the recent successes of the Russian army in the Donbass and fears a major offensive in the coming weeks. Supported by the paramilitary group Wagner, the Russian army continues to pound Bakhmout, which it has been trying to conquer since last summer. Russian forces thus consolidated their positions north of Bakhmout, cutting off an important Ukrainian supply route. The Moscow troops therefore continued their attempt to encircle this fortress city from the north, south and east. “In fact, we have cut off three of the four supply routes” from the Ukrainian army to Bakhmout, said Denis Pushilin, a separatist official. According to him, the only remaining route is the one leading to Chassiv Iar, further west.
“I mention the south (of the country) less often, but it has no less strategic significance,” Volodymyr Zelensky also noted on Tuesday, while the Russians are also on the offensive on Vougledar, some 150 kilometers away. further south, close to a railway junction serving occupied eastern and southern Ukraine.
Second Russian oil embargo
After two months of the European Union’s embargo on Russian crude and its price cap by the G7, the West hopes that its new sanctions, targeting petroleum products, will hit Moscow’s oil windfall harder. A second EU embargo, on purchases of Russian petroleum products by sea this time, coupled with a ceiling price for these products applied by the G7 countries, came into force on Sunday, in addition to the sanctions in place since Dec. 5 on crude.
Petroleum products come from the refining of crude oil, such as fuels (gasoline, kerosene, diesel) but also bitumen, tar, etc. These sanctions should be “much more disturbing” for the Kremlin, because Westerners are now targeting the production of fuels, in particular diesel, asserts Stephen Brennock, analyst at PVM Energy.
In 2022, before the start of the war, the European Union was the main buyer of Russian diesel, for nearly 700,000 barrels per day, more than half of its total imports. Despite a sharp decline over the past year, more than a quarter of diesel imports into Europe still came from Russia at the start of 2023, representing a daily volume of 450,000 barrels, according to S&P Global.
Most civilian casualties in the East
In this war, civilians are far from being spared. According to the Armed Conflict Locations and Events Data Project (Acled), nearly eight million civilians have fled Ukraine to seek protection in countries in Europe, and more than six million people have been displaced to inside the country. In addition, “the firing of shells, missiles, planes and Russian drones targeting civilians caused thousands of victims”, adds the Acled project website. The east of the country was particularly targeted by this destruction.
Among other things, the liberation of the regions of kyiv, Kharkiv or the city of Kherson, revealed “mass atrocities which would have been committed by Russian forces and which caused more than a thousand additional civilian victims in 2022”, according to Acled .