well, germany played a key role in building up the huge russian offence for this war by buying russian gas, trading with russia big time and now, special responsibility is on german shoulders, and we do expect their contribution, we expect quick decisions, we expect more openness towards ukrainian needs. so let s take a closer look at germany s role in all this. the leopard ii is operated by about 20 countries worldwide, and it s made in germany. but it gets more complicated, because other countries that operate the tanks have to ask germany for permission to donate them due to german export restrictions. the leader of the nato alliance has been meeting with the new german defence minister in berlin. consultations amongst allies i
most of the tanks we saw operating near the front line date back to the 70s, if not before. wolf? ben wedeman on the scene for us. stay safe over in ukraine. thank you very much. let s discuss these dramatic developments right now. i m joined by retired lieutenant general mark hertling, katie lilis. how big of a breakthrough is this if the u.s. and germany start sending tanks to ukraine? and how long could it actually take until the abrams battle tanks, the u.s. tanks are actually on the battlefield for ukraine? here s what i ll say, wolf. i think the leos will probably be there a lot faster. i m going predict two to three months that they will be in the field in combat. primarily because they re in europe already. you have 13 countries that are part of nato and partners of
pay the price if the west starts sending these tanks to ukraine. what message is this expected decision by both germany and the u.s. send to putin, and how do you think he may respond? no one knows how he is going to respond, wolf. and frankly, he has said and his people have said over and over they re going to do things if we send more weapons, and they ve never done that. this is exactly the right decision. this is what we should be doing. this is exactly the kind of thing that we should be sending to the ukrainians. by the way, i understand that secretary austin had a lot to do, did a lot of work last week in germany at very high levels to get this deal. so secretary austin gets a lot of credit for this. and i don t think he was much bothered by anything the russians are saying. a good point. katie bow, i know you re doing a lot of reporting on this. what is your latest reporting on this message from u.s. officials to president zelenskyy on
delivering sophisticated tanks to ukraine. we re also following major tornado damage out in texas. we ll have more on that. that s coming up next as well. .will remain radioacactive for years to come. well, thank goodness. it s time for the good news of the week. and, boy, do we need it. [ chuckles ] well, this se driver saved money with the snapshot ap from progressive. -how do you el? -um, good? he s better than good. he gotewarded for driving safe and driving less. sorry, barb, just to confirm, this is the feel-good news of the week? this is what we found. -yay, snapshot!
seem all together enthusiastic about the idea. the americans sending the m1 abrams tank and the germans sending the leopard 2 tank. so it does appear that logjam has been broken. however, it s important to stress that it s going to take quite a while to get the tanks here. and also, to train the crews. according to authorities on this matter, it could take up to six months to train ukrainian tank crews on the abrams. that could obviously be accelerated, as we ve seen with other weapons systems. but the leopard 2 takes about two to three months to train a crew. plus, of course, the logistics, the mechanics that are going to have to service these tanks, which take a lot of servicing, by the way. so it s not going to be immediate. but what we ve seen after weeks of covering the fighting in the eastern ukraine is that the ukrainians are desperately in need of modern tanks.