MOSCOW, January 26. /TASS/. Western tank deliveries to the Kiev regime won’t change the situation in Ukraine and can hardly be perceived as disastrous, Head of the Russian delegation at the Vienna military security and arms control talks Konstantin Gavrilov said in a live broadcast on the Rossiya-24 TV Channel on Thursday.
"There is nothing good in the deliveries and potential deliveries of these tanks but this should not be perceived as a disaster. They won’t change anything on the front line. Our resolve has been proven," the diplomat stressed.
As the diplomat pointed out, "all this has been over-exaggerated."
"All this hype is being made to subordinate Europe, really enable the Americans to be least of all engaged in that and unleash Europe against it [Russia]," he said.
The US administration announced on January 25 that it would hand over 31 M1 Abrams tanks to the Kiev regime. In turn, the German government confirmed that that it would send 14 Leopard tanks from the country’s stockpiles to the Kiev regime and authorize other countries to re-export this armor. The Norwegian and Slovakian defense ministries also announced their intention on January 25 to hand over tanks to Ukraine. Earlier, the UK, France and Poland announced their intention to transfer tanks to Kiev.
Russian Ambassador to Germany Sergey Nechayev castigated Berlin’s decision to deliver tanks to the Kiev regime as "extremely dangerous." The Russian envoy said that this decision "brings the conflict to a new level of confrontation."
On his part, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said on January 24 that Russian troops would wipe out American M1 Abrams tanks like any other NATO military equipment, if the US administration decided to deliver them to Ukraine.