Ukraine now has more tanks on the ground than Russia does, US defense official says

• Western allies are sending heavier weaponry to Ukraine as Russia launches a new offensive.
• A US defense official told The Washington Post that Ukraine now has more tanks than Russia does.

Ukraine now has more tanks on the ground than Russia does, a senior US defense official told The Washington Post.

"Right now, the Ukrainians have more tanks in Ukraine than the Russians do … and they certainly have the purview to use them," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Post.

Insider was unable to independently verify this claim, and it is unclear exactly how many tanks both Russia and Ukraine have eight weeks into the war.

But the report comes as Western nations pledged to dispatch more heavy weaponry to Ukraine to help it defend itself against a renewed Russian offensive in the eastern Donbas region.

On Thursday, President Joe Biden announced an additional $800 million military aid package that will equip Ukraine with heavy artillery, howitzers, and tactical drones. The first such package, announced on April 13, included hundreds of armored vehicles and Mi-17 helicopters.

Earlier this month, a Pentagon official told The New York Times that the US will help with the transfer of Soviet-made tanks to the Donbas. The official declined to say how many tanks would be sent, or from which countries they would come.

European countries have also said they will provide heavy-duty weapons to Ukraine, including tanks.

In total, Ukraine's allies have sent more than $3 billion in military aid since Russia's invasion on February 24, the BBC reported.

On top of this, Russian troops are still losing military equipment.

Ukraine's armed forces said Friday that Russian troops had lost more than 800 tanks and more than 2,000 combat armored machines since the start of its invasion on February 24.

An intelligence briefing published by the British Ministry of Defence on Friday said that "despite Russia's renewed focus [in Donbas], they are still suffering from losses sustained earlier in the conflict."

"In order to try and reconstitute their depleted forces, they have resorted to transiting inoperable equipment back to Russia for repair," the briefing said.

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has been asking allies for months to send over weapons. In a speech on Tuesday, he said Ukraine would have already beaten Russia if it had been given more war supplies.