‘If we don’t send tanks and jets, Putin will win’

Latvia has urged its Nato allies to bolster their arms shipments to Ukraine with modern, western-made battle tanks and jets in the hope of turning the tide of the conflict against Russia.

In interviews with The Times, President Levits, the head of state, and Artis Pabriks, the defence minister, also warned European partners against weakening their resolve to face down Moscow because of economic hardship, war fatigue and energy prices.

Six months into the war, Ukraine says it urgently needs more sophisticated weapons systems from the West as it shifts to counter-offensive mode with a push to retake the southern city of Kherson from well-entrenched Russian forces.

On the eve of a visit to Berlin today Denys Shmyhal, the Ukrainian prime minister, called for a “change in philosophy” and said his country’s backers needed to drop their reservations about delivering advanced battle tanks such as the M1 Abrams from the US and the German-made Leopard 2.

Up to now European states have sent older Soviet-era tanks, arguing variously that more models might embolden Ukraine to attack Russian territory or prove too complex for Ukrainian soldiers to master quickly.

However, Latvia, one of Ukraine’s most ardent European supporters, said it was time to stop dithering over the question. “Above all, the West, the US, the European Union, all western democratic states should now not just maintain but increase their military aid to Ukraine: you can see that this military aid is really effective,” said Levits, 67.

Asked whether this should include western tanks, combat jets and other armaments that Ukraine had previously been denied, he replied: “From a political perspective I can say the West should hand over all the weapons Ukraine needs.”

Pabriks, 56, also the deputy prime minister, went further, saying the West had encouraged President Putin by holding back because of exaggerated fears that Moscow might be provoked into a nuclear attack. He argued that Nato should do everything short of sending in soldiers to fight Russian troops, and help Ukraine to take back the entirety of its sovereign territory, including Crimea, “at a minimum”.

“There’s been huge influence from [Russian] information warfare and propaganda,” Pabriks said. “Many people in western countries really believe that any act of support for Ukraine can bring on a higher level of escalation and might upset Putin, the Kremlin, Russia. That was a huge mistake because the only thing that provokes Russia is weakness . . . I don’t see a reason why western armoured vehicles shouldn’t be in Ukraine. Why not? Simply because Russia might get upset?”

Pabriks continued: “We have to stop this imperial aggression. It’s very simple. It’s just like in the Second World War; they‘re acting like [in] the Nazi times . If we want to end the war, if we want to provide grain for the Third World, if we simply want to live our lives as usual, the only way to go forward and to have peace is a Ukrainian victory.

“There’s no alternative, no compromise, [no] peace talks where we would give away to Moscow something like Chamberlain did [to Nazi Germany with the 1938 Munich agreement]. These would not be solutions. They would simply be preparation for the next war, on Nato soil.”

After years of fruitlessly warning western European allies about Putin’s true intent, Latvia Poland, Estonia and Lithuania have gained greater weight in the EU since the start of the war, successfully pushing for Ukraine to be adopted as a candidate for membership.

Some analysts have argued that they are on the brink of amassing enough influence and authority in Brussels to rival France and Germany in shaping the whole bloc’s geopolitical posture. Pabriks said that while Paris and Berlin remained strong there was no longer any such thing as a “Franco-German engine” driving the EU: “The power structures are changing in Europe.”

In an apparent allusion to Germany, Levits said: “We look at Russia without rose-tinted spectacles. In western Europe there was often a prevailing naiveté about Russian ideology. And it’s not just the states that pursued these policies towards Russia and especially placed themselves in a position of dependence on Russian energy resources that are now paying for the mistakes that were made, but the whole of Europe.

“We see grave mistakes were made here. We always warned against them. Now we are seizing the initiative so that these mistakes can be corrected. I have to say that the awareness of these past mistakes in western Europe has grown a very great deal and our positions – which are positions for the defence of democracy — are being adopted, or at least people are more open to them.

“You could also say that since the start of the war Europe’s political centre of gravity has shifted a bit in a north-easterly direction.”

Latvia, which spent 47 years under Soviet occupation and has been peppered with Russian disinformation and cyberattacks for a decade, has given 0.8 per cent of its GDP to Ukraine since the start of the war.

According to a table compiled by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think tank, this is a larger proportion than any other country except Estonia. Relative to the size of its economy, Latvia’s contribution has been four times as big as Britain’s, ten times Germany’s and 20 times France’s.

With recessions and double-digit inflation looming across much of Europe this winter, Latvia shares the UK’s worries that the momentum of western support for Ukraine could be sapped, leading to fewer arms deliveries or a stall in the sanctions drive against Russia.

In Latvia itself inflation is running at 21.5 per cent and power prices have more than trebled compared to 12 months ago, in part because of the state’s decision to stop buying Russian gas.

“It’s a concern, because we already see that there is not as much enthusiasm among a number of European countries as there is in the Baltic states,” Pabriks said. “Of course, we also have huge problems with energy shortages and how to survive this winter.

 “But I think we have to give a clear message to our population: we are basically living in a wartime economy. So we must do everything to survive together this winter. Yes, it will cost [us] because this is a war . . . this is what is required from all the governments across the European and transatlantic countries.”

Both Levits and Pabriks said Germany bore special responsibility to help Kyiv because of the Nazi regime’s crimes against the Ukrainian people.

Olaf Scholz, the chancellor, has pledged about €1.2 billion in military aid and Berlin has delivered several dozen armoured vehicles, including seven long-range howitzers and 15 Gepard anti-aircraft guns.

However, other items it has promised, such as cutting-edge Iris-T air defence missiles, artillery guidance radars and truck-mounted 70mm mortars, have yet to materialise.

This week Christine Lambrecht, the German defence minister, said she saw “hardly any scope” for further donations out of armed forces stocks without compromising her own country’s ability to defend itself.

While Levits said he believed Germany was living up to its commitments, Pabriks said its contribution had been an inadequate “kind of performance” and ought to be raised tenfold, to as much as €15 billion.

“I’m at risk of upsetting Scholz or someone else in Germany, Pabriks said. “But looking at it from the Latvian perspective . . . and this public view goes across the Baltic states, Poland and Ukraine, my wish would be that a country such as Germany would give proportionally equal support to Ukraine like we are doing.”