Apart from Leopard tanks, Ukraine is getting lots of weapons

THE FREQUENTNATONATO televised speeches to his country’s allies by Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, have a familiar refrain: send us more weapons. Talking to his own countrymen on the evening of January 20th, he tried to counter a sense of disappointment. Hours earlier Western officials at a defence summit at America’s Ramstein military base, in Germany, to send Ukraine German-made Leopard tanks, the most prominent item on its wish-list. Mr Zelensky vowed to continue pushing countries to do so. “Yes, we will still have to fight for the supply of modern tanks,” he said, “but every day we make it more obvious there is no alternative.”Mr Zelensky praised a number of allies who have recently agreed on new arms deliveries to Ukraine. He singled out America, Britain, Estonia, the Netherlands and Poland, among others. But he had no kind words for Germany, which continues to block deliveries of Leopards. A number of European countries, including Poland and Finland, have offered to supply Ukraine with some of their own. But that requires approval from Germany, which produces the tanks. After months of entreaties, Germany is still hesitating. “We all cannot say today when a decision [on the Leopards] will come and what it will look like,” the newly minted German defence minister, Boris Pistorius, said on the sidelines of the summit.