Strikes Hit Ukraine Cities as UK Promises Tanks

Nine people are killed in one city in missile attack
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jan 14, 2023 3:15 PM CST
Strikes Hit Ukraine Cities as UK Promises Tanks
Ukrainians holding pictures of missing soldiers during a demonstration Saturday in downtown Kyiv.   (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Saturday promised to provide tanks and artillery systems to Ukraine, as renewed missile attacks by Moscow targeted multiple Ukrainian cities for the first time in nearly two weeks. Nine people were killed and 64 wounded in the southeastern city of Dnipro, where a Russian missile strike destroyed a section of an apartment building, said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office. Infrastructure facilities were also hit in the western Lviv region and Ivano-Frankivsk regions, in the Odesa region on the Black Sea, and in northeastern Kharkiv. Kyiv, the capital, was also targeted, the AP reports.

Sunak made the pledge to provide Challenger 2 tanks and other artillery systems after speaking to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday, the British leader's office said in a statement. It didn't say when the tanks would be delivered or how many. British media have reported that four British Army Challenger 2 main battle tanks will be sent to Eastern Europe immediately, with eight more to follow shortly. Zelensky tweeted his thanks to Sunak on Saturday "for the decisions that will not only strengthen us on the battlefield, but also send the right signal to other partners." Ukraine has for months sought to be supplied with heavier tanks, including the US Abrams and the German Leopard 2 tanks, but Western leaders have been treading carefully.

The Czech Republic and Poland have provided Soviet-era T-72 tanks to Ukrainian forces. Poland has also expressed readiness to provide a company of Leopard tanks, but President Andrzej Duda stressed during his recent visit to the Ukrainian city of Lviv that the move would be possible only as an element in a larger international coalition of tank aid. Earlier this month, France said it would send AMX-10 RC armored combat vehicles to Ukraine, designated "light tanks" in French. The US and Germany announced the same week that they would send Bradley fighting vehicles and Marder armored personnel carriers, respectively, for the first time.

(More Russia-Ukraine war stories.)

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