Kiev/Moscow, Sept. 25, (dpa/GNA) – The first US Abrams tanks have arrived in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday, as Kiev also claimed the commander of Russia’s Black Sea fleet had been killed.
In total, the United States had announced the handover of 31 of the battle tanks to Ukraine.
“The Abrams are already in Ukraine and are being prepared to reinforce our brigades,” Zelensky said on Telegram.
He did not provide details on the number of US tanks already in the country but thanked the allies for their arms assistance. The US is considered Kiev’s most important military supporter.
Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, US military aid to Ukraine has amounted to $43.9 billion, according to government figures.
Most recently, weapons and equipment worth $128 million were authorized from US military stocks.
But Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles with a range of up to 300 kilometres, long requested by Kiev, were not included.
Ukraine launched a counteroffensive to retake Russian-occupied territories in June and has been making slow progress, but the attack on Russia’s prestigious Black Sea naval Fleet headquarters last week rattled Moscow.
The fleet’s commander, Viktor Sokolov, died in the attack, according to Kiev.
“After the hit at the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, 34 officers died, including the commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet,” the press service of the special forces at the Ukrainian military announced on Telegram.
There is still no confirmation of the admiral’s death from the Russian side.
Last Friday the Ukrainian military launched a combined attack of drones and cruise missiles on the Crimean Peninsula, which has been controlled by Russia since having been illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Videos showed that the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the port city of Sevastopol was hit several times. After the attack, however, Moscow spoke of only one person being missing.
Sokolov was appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet in September 2022. According to media reports, his predecessor was removed from office after the sinking of the missile cruiser Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, a few months after Moscow’s war against Ukraine began.
In current fighting, local authorities in Ukraine reported that three people, including two senior citizens, were killed and one woman was injured in a Russian airstrike on the southern Ukrainian town of Beryslav.
A 73-year-old man and a 70-year-old woman died when a bomb dropped by plane hit a municipal housing administration building. Another man who was injured in the attack died in hospital in the afternoon. Another aerial bomb destroyed a residential building, according to the Telegram statement.
Beryslav is located on the north-western bank of the Dnipro river, which largely forms the front line between the Russian and Ukrainian armies in the embattled southern Ukrainian region of Kherson.
The city has been the target of Russian air and artillery bombardments several times, including the day before this latest attack.
Russia also attacked the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa with drones and missiles overnight.
According to Odessa’s military governor Oleh Kiper, at least two dead bodies were recovered from under the rubble of a warehouse that was hit. A woman was also injured and is being treated in hospital.
Debris from a missile fell in the breakaway Transnistrian region of Moldova, local authorities in the pro-Russian area said. Fragments fell in a village less than 20 kilometres from the Ukrainian border but it was unclear if it was a Russian missile targeting Odessa.
GNA