Poland asks Germany for tank OK; Ukraine targets corruption

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Poland has officially requested permission from Germany to transfer its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine where they can help fight Russia’s invasion, Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak said Tuesday.

“At this crucial moment in the war, we need to provide Ukraine with heavier and more advanced systems, and we need to do it faster,” Stoltenberg said Tuesday after talks with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius in Berlin.

In Kyiv, meanwhile, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office quit Tuesday after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pledged to launch a staff shake-up amid high-level corruption allegations.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, asked to be relieved of his duties, according to an online copy of a decree signed by Zelenskyy and Tymoshenko’s own social media posts.

Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry later identified the dismissed official as Vasyl Lozynsky, a deputy minister there.

Oleksandr Kubrakov, the infrastructure minister, said Lozynsky was relieved of his duties after Ukraine’s anti-corruption agency detained him while he was receiving a $400,000 bribe for helping to fix contracts related to restoring infrastructure facilities battered by Russian missile strikes.

In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine’s focus on the war would not stop his government from tackling corruption.