RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany/kyiv, April 26 (Reuters) – The United States and its allies pledged new and heavier weapons packages for Ukraine during a meeting at a German air base on Tuesday, sweeping a threat from Moscow that their support for kyiv could lead to nuclear war.

U.S. officials shifted their focus this week, shifting primarily from helping Ukraine defend itself, to bolder talk of a Ukrainian victory that would weaken Russia’s ability to threaten its neighbors.

Meanwhile, Russia’s powerful Security Council secretary said Western and Ukrainian government policy was leading to the breakup of Ukraine, and he accused Washington of seeking to instill in Ukrainians a hatred of all things Russian.

NATO allies have recently approved shipments of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of weapons, including artillery and drones they held back from sending in earlier phases of the war, and want their allies do the same.

“Nations around the world are united in our resolve to support Ukraine in its fight against Imperial Russian aggression,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, welcoming officials from more than 40 countries to the U.S. Air Base. Ramstein in Germany, the seat of American air power in Europe. . “Ukraine clearly believes they can win, just like everyone here.”

In a notable change, Germany, where the government had come under pressure after refusing Ukrainian requests for heavy weapons, announced that it would now send “Gepard” light tanks with anti-aircraft guns. Read more

“The real significance of this decision lies not in the difference Gepards can make on the battlefield, but in the signal it sends,” said Marcel Dirsus, nonresident researcher at the Security Policy Institute of the University of Kiel.

US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, believe Russia will rely heavily on artillery strikes to pound Ukrainian positions while moving ground forces from multiple directions to try to envelop and eliminate a significant part of the Ukrainian army.

But Washington also believes that many Russian units are depleted, with some operating with personnel losses of up to 30% – a level considered by the US military to be too high to continue fighting indefinitely.

US officials cite anecdotes such as Russian tanks with single, unmanned drivers, and substandard equipment prone to failure or obsolete.

In a marked escalation of Russian rhetoric, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was asked on state television on Monday night about the prospect of World War III and whether the current situation could be compared to the Cuban Missile Crisis. of 1962 that nearly caused a nuclear war.

“The danger is serious, real. And we must not underestimate it,” Lavrov said, according to the ministry’s interview transcript. “NATO, in essence, is engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and is arming that proxy. War means war.”

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby denounced what he called Lavrov’s “escalating rhetoric”.

“It’s obviously unnecessary, not constructive, and certainly not indicative of what a responsible (world power) should do in the public sphere,” Kirby said. “A nuclear war cannot be won and it must not be fought. There is no reason for the current conflict in Ukraine to reach this level.”

Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters on his way to Tuesday’s meeting that the next few weeks in Ukraine would be “very, very critical”.

“They need continued support to be successful on the battlefield. And that’s really what this conference is about,” he said, describing the goal as aid coordination that includes heavy weapons such as howitzer artillery.

Russian Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev told the government-run Rossiyskaya Gazeta that Ukraine could break up into “several states”. His comments suggested that the war could lead to a carving up of the country for which Moscow would seek to shift the blame to its opponents. Read more

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, visiting Moscow, said he was ready to fully mobilize the organization’s resources to save lives and evacuate residents of the besieged city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine. Read more

“We are extremely interested in finding ways to create the conditions for an effective dialogue, to create the conditions for a ceasefire as soon as possible, to create the conditions for a peaceful solution,” Guterres said during of a meeting with Lavrov, prior to talks with President Vladimir Putin.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said no humanitarian corridors were working on Tuesday because there had been no break in fighting in Ukraine.

In western Ukraine, there were fears the unrest could spread to Moldova, where Russian troops have occupied a breakaway region along the Ukrainian border, Transnistria, since the 1990s. Two radio masts were destroyed by explosions early Tuesday, following further explosions in Transnistria on Monday.

Separatist authorities said they were raising their terror threat level to red, while the Kremlin expressed concern. Russian news agency TASS quoted the separatist leader as saying the attacks could be traced to Ukraine.

Pro-Western Moldovan President Maia Sandu blamed the “escalation attempts” on “factions in the Transdniestrian region which are pro-war forces and interested in destabilizing the situation in the region”. Read more

Sandu’s government expressed concern last week after a top Russian general said Moscow was aiming to force its way through Ukraine to Transnistria, where he said Russian speakers needed protection of oppression. Moldova, a former Soviet state, has close cultural and linguistic ties with NATO member Romania.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two months ago left thousands dead or injured, reduced cities to rubble and forced more than 5 million people to flee abroad.

Moscow calls its actions a “special operation” to disarm Ukraine and protect it from fascists. Ukraine and the West call this a false pretext for an unprovoked war to seize territory.

Additional reporting by Reuters reporters; Written by Peter Graff and Gareth Jones; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Mark Heinrich

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