In an interview with the BNR, former caretaker minister of defence Todor Tagarev stated that Bulgaria is capable of providing Ukraine with 30-40 tanks, “instead of keeping them in storage, and in 2-3 to 5 years’ time cutting them up for scrap”, as well as artillery systems, multiple launch rocket systems, and MiG-29 and Su-25 fighter aircraft. Todor Tagarev pointed out that a huge amount of weaponry has been promised Ukraine at the meeting in Rammstein, with experts having their say as to what kind of aid would be most needed and effective.

There has so far been no consensus among the allies at Rammstein, where Germany was expected to give its consent for sending Ukraine Leopard tanks. After the meeting, Germany's new Defence Minister Boris Pistorius denied that Berlin was unilaterally blocking the delivery of Leopard tanks to Ukraine and said the government would be ready to move quickly on the issue if there was consensus among allies.

Senior U.S. officials are advising Ukraine to hold off on launching a major offensive against Russian forces until the latest supply of US weaponry is in place and training has been provided, a senior Biden administration official said on Friday, Reuters reports. The official, speaking to a small group of reporters on condition of anonymity, said the United States was holding fast to its decision not to provide Abrams tanks to Ukraine at this time, amid the controversy with Germany over tanks. The belief in Washington is that Ukraine has spent considerable resources defending the city of Bakhmut but that there is a high possibility that the Russians will eventually push the Ukrainians out of that town, the official said, as reported by Reuters. A high-ranking US delegation that included Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and deputy White House national security adviser Jon Finer was in Kyiv in recent days for talks with Ukrainian officials.

Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, is worried about the losses the Ukrainian army has been suffering in the fighting against the Russian forces in Bakhmut in Eastern Ukraine, Der Spiegel reports. The BND reportedly says Ukraine was losing a three-digit number of troops a day, adding it was worried about significant consequences that would come with Russia’s possible capture of Bakhmut, because it would allow Russia to threaten key Ukrainian strongholds.

In its daily report from the war in Ukraine, British intelligence says the heaviest fighting has been around Donetsk region, in the Bakhmut sector, and to the Northeast, close to Kreminna where Ukraine has probably achieved small successes, as well as in the South, in Zaporizhzhia region.