We can say that Ukraine is poised to have the tanks it has requested as the West has activated the shipment of Abrams, Leopard or Challenger with an eye toward the spring.
It is not only when a new large-scale Russian offensive is expected, but also movements by Kyiv too with the aim of recovering more territories. However, eastern Ukraine remains the main focus of the fighting, which is still heavily marked by winter.
Moscow maintains three different open fronts, if you look at the map of Ukraine right now. Two of them are in Donetsk and the third has been opened in Zaporizhia.
This is especially worrying since already this Thursday the IAEA warned of explosions in the vicinity of the town's nuclear power plant, now under Russian control.
Ukraine, for its part, is now limiting itself to defending the territories it already controls: it has lost the 'moment' it had at the end of 2022 and recovering that initiative is one of the reasons for insisting on the West to supply it with military material offensive.
Tanks have already gone to combat aircraft, which will be the next debate within NATO. The Deciphering War map shows this situation:
The pro-Russian authorities in the Donetsk region have warned this Friday that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are sending militiamen from the "neo-Nazi Azov Battalion", to the town of Bakhmut, which has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion.
"The new unit, which includes part of the Azov Battalion regiment, is being transferred to Bakhmut, where it is very difficult to fight, and with this unit, Ukraine is trying to rebuild its positions," said Yan Gagin, an adviser to the Donetsk authorities.
In this sense, he has pointed out that "carrying out military operations in this direction shows that the Russians are much stronger."
"Apparently, the Ukrainian regime has decided to transfer those militiamen that we did not wipe out in Mariupol."
