re: #217 ckkatz

Last week at Ramstein Airbase there was a meeting of Western countries to coordinate aid to Ukraine. A significant amount of aid was promised. The area of major contention, tanks looks like it will be resolved this or next week.

(The Germans may, or may not agree to transfer Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. The Poles and others may, or may not donate tanks regardless of what the Germans say. The US may unilaterally donate M1 tanks to Ukraine. The US may exchange US tanks to allies in return for them donating Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.)

The next Ukraine Aid Conference at Ramstein is scheduled for the end of February. The topic there will be sending aircraft to Ukraine.

This was announced today by the Ukrainians -

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Germany has been a reluctant partner in this whole affair from the word “Go,” pretty clearly in the “Just give Putin what he wants” camp at the beginning when it looked like a Russian thunder run into Kiev was going to end the whole mess in a matter of days. The reasons are almost all purely political ones, largely centered around the fallout domestically if gas and fuel supplies ran low in the middle of a bitterly cold winter. Yeah, gas stockpiles were topped up and the winter hasn’t been as cold as feared, but German leadership still wants to avoid pissing off Russia too much in the hopes that they can return to something resembling status quo ante bellum once the shooting stops.