Ukraine<\/a> 49 Abrams tanks worth $245m.<\/p>\nDefence minister, Richard Marles, said the tanks would aid Ukrainian firepower and complement other military equipment donated by allies to repel Russia\u2019s invasion.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralia remains steadfast in our support for Ukraine and seeing a just and lasting peace,\u201d Marles said.<\/p>\n
A majority of the tanks have been delivered and a final tranche will arrive in the coming months, but actual numbers have not been released.<\/p>\n
Russian missile and drone strikes in Ukraine are targeting civilians in record numbers, according to the United Nations human rights office.<\/p>\n
June marked the deadliest month for civilians in more than three years, the UN said.<\/p>\n
Australia will also deploy a Wedgetail aircraft to Europe in August to protect the corridors to Ukraine through which aid is delivered.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralia stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukraine,\u201d defence industry minister, Pat Conroy, said.<\/p>\n
Australia has committed more than $1.5bn to aid Ukraine since Russia\u2019s invasion in February 2022.<\/p>\n
It comes as the federal government negotiates a non-binding security pact with Ukraine, following more than two dozen other nations that have similar agreements.<\/p>\n
The agreements are largely vague, are not legally binding and don\u2019t include joint security or defence guarantees.<\/p>\n
Areas of co-operation for Australia and Ukraine likely to be included in such a pact span military assistance and collaboration.<\/p>\n
A second agreement eliminating double taxation to encourage investment in Ukraine to help it rebuild after the devastating war is also set to be inked.<\/p>\n
The delivery of tanks also comes as United Nations and humanitarian partners launched an appeal to try and raise hundreds of millions of dollars to protect Ukrainians facing a harsh winter as Russia attacks critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n
The winter response plan aims to deliver humanitarian assistance to more than 1.7 million people between October 2025 and March 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first tranche of Australian tanks has been handed over to the Ukrainian army to help its defence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-273092","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114876462288143358","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}