DELAYS in sending tanks to help Ukraine has been criticised by a Ukrainian MP, who said the country has also not received an explanation from Germany about its reluctance to help.

Kira Rudik was commenting on the news that Germany and the USA are to send tanks to Ukraine, after both countries initially stalled on fulfilling Ukraine’s request.

She told GB News: “We are all thrilled that the decision has finally been made and that we will receive tanks…we will train our soldiers faster, and that logistically the tanks will arrive in Ukraine faster.

“Of course, it is upsetting that the decision to take us to this turning point in supplying weapons for Ukraine was before the New Year when President Biden agreed to send us Patriot missiles.

“We know that Germany was hesitant because they did not want to be the only country supplying tanks to Ukraine. However, these arguments were quickly ruled out when the United Kingdom, United States, and Poland agreed to do that.”

She added: “We never have heard decent explanations from Germany, as to why there was hesitation. Right now, information from intelligence from all over the world is saying that Russia will be on the offensive very soon.

“It should not be a matter of question whether to give us weapons or not right now a year into this war.

“We are still in this David versus Goliath situation where Russia has more people, more weapons, more military production, and more supplies.

“So we have to be different. We have to fight harder. We have to have more sophisticated weapons, and we have to have to use different strategies and having tanks is one of those strategies.

“We are really happy that tanks will arrive but why didn’t they arrive earlier from Germany? That will remain a big question mark.”

Asked if she was worried that support from Germany and France was waning, she said: “Putin was very clear a couple of times that he plans to drag the war on for a long time, and that he hopes that the Western alliance would not hold, that it will be really, really hard and at some point, the alliance will break.

“We are worried that he may succeed but again, it’s in our power, all democratic countries have the power, to make him fail, because what nobody’s talking about is what would happen if Ukraine fails?

“We don’t want to think about that, we will be standing for as long as it takes. However, what would happen if we don’t get the supplies? What would happen if the West showed weakness against Putin?

“It’s not only Ukraine, Russia, and Western countries watching, China is watching…looking for a single small sign of weakness for all the other dictators in the world to raise their hands and say, yeah, well probably we can do something against the UN Charter as well.

“And so what would you do in Western countries? Much more than Ukraine at stake, it is something that we need to continue telling our German friends, our French friends and continue pushing for this unified front, this is the only way to move forward.”