Russia and Belarus are conducting a further week of joint military drills, the Belarusian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday, the latest sign of cooperation between the neighboring allies amid Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The ministry said the aim of the training is to improve the compatibility of the two militaries and is part of preparation for the joint Union Shield 2023 exercises the two countries will hold in Russia in September.

The announcement of the new drills comes as Russian and Belarussian aviation combat units continue to conduct training missions during joint flight and tactical exercises of the air forces of the two countries.

The exercises are being held at the Ruzhansky training grounds in Belarus about 150 kilometers (93 miles) north of the Ukrainian border.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has backed a plan to set up joint military training centers with Belarus, according to Agence France-Presse.

In a decree published Tuesday, Putin tasked the defense and foreign ministers to conduct talks with Belarus and sign an agreement to establish the facilities, AFP reported.

The document did not specify where they would be based.

Some context: An announcement by Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko in October that his country and Russia would form a joint regional force and carry out exercises set off alarm bells in Kyiv.

The last time Belarus and Russia forces held joint exercises, in February last year, many of those Russian forces went on to cross the Ukrainian border in their ill-fated drive towards the capital.

But Western officials speaking to media on background this week have expressed doubt that Russia could launch an offensive from Belarus in the coming months. 

The Russian troops’ presence would, however, prompt Ukraine into stationing its troops in that direction to “offset that potential risk,” the officials said, even though they stressed it is “hugely unlikely” that Belarus “will be an axis of advance in the next several months.”

The leader of one of Germany’s largest arms manufacturers said the country’s increased military budget of 100 billion euros (around $108 billion) is “too low” to meet the government’s goal of modernizing Germany’s military capacity.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the bolstered budget days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“Many people talk about the fact that the defense budget is too low, and I can confirm that,” Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger told Reuters this week in a video interview. 

“Last year, for example, we were not able to deliver trucks or ammunition because there was no budget, because there was no money,” the CEO said. 

In the interview, Papperger praised newly appointed German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius for the “absolute record” time it took the two to have a conversation.

Germany’s special defense fund, which was set up last year, is no longer enough to cover its requirements, Pistorius said in an interview with German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung published on Friday.

He also said sending fighter jets to Ukraine was “out of the question” after the country agreed to provide Leopard 2 tanks earlier in the week.

The Rheinmetall CEO said in the interview his company could increase its production of tank rounds to over 100,000 “today,” and that the arms manufacturer has a total capacity of over 240,000 rounds, but for a bottleneck of gunpowder. 

He added that the gunpowder shortage was being compounded by the demand to produce both tank and artillery shells.

The CEO said his company would need financial assistance from the German government if it wanted to build another ammunitions factory to meet that potential demand. 

“It would be a relatively large plant as we would need to build a specialized chemical plant that would carry an estimated cost of between 700 and 800 million euros (between about $761 million and $871 million),” Papperger said. 

A Rheinmetall spokesman told CNN on Tuesday that even though it has 139 Leopard tanks in stock, only 29 modern Leopard 2 combat tanks could be ready for delivery as early as April or May, as they are being prepared for a weapons ring exchange. Rheinmetall would need about a year to prepare another 22 Leopard 2 vehicles that it has in stock, he added.

CNN’s Inke Kappeler and Claudia Otto in Berlin contributed reporting to this post.

Those hoping that main battle tanks donated by NATO allies to Ukraine will have an immediate impact in its war with Russia may have to adjust their expectations.

After confirming it will receive deliveries of the American M-1 Abrams, German Leopards and British Challengers, Kyiv is now confronted with the logistical and operational realities of incorporating an assortment of vastly different and complex heavy armor into effective fighting units.

But first, the Ukrainians must factor in the time line for delivery.

Even the most optimistic estimates say it will take months for the tanks to enter the battlefield in numbers to make a big difference, while in the case of Abrams tanks it could be more than a year before Ukraine is able to deploy them.

Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said Thursday that the United States would provide Ukraine with an advanced version of the Abrams, the M1A2.

The US does not “have these tanks available in excess in our US stocks,” she said, adding it will take “months to transfer” them to Ukraine.

Many analysts say it would make things easier for Ukraine to stick with one kind of tank, and that’s what makes Germany’s decision to allow Leopards into the fight so important.

Modern main battle tanks are complicated pieces of weaponry. Looking formidable and rugged on the outside, much of their effectiveness on the battlefield comes down to sophisticated electronic and computer systems at their core. Those systems find targets and train the tank’s main gun on them.

Maintaining the tanks, repairing them, and supplying the parts necessary requires detailed training all the way from the crews in the vehicles to the logistics trail supporting them, hundreds or maybe thousands of miles from the front lines in eastern Ukraine.

Read the full analysis here.

Germany has not received a request from Poland or any other country for permission to transfer the German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, a government spokesman said Monday.

“To this hour we have not received a request,“ Steffen Hebestreit told a news conference. “And if they ask, then there is a certain procedure. I can’t tell you whether that will take a few days or several months.“

He promised that any application would be “processed with the necessary speed that is required, but of course also with the necessary thoroughness that such procedures demand.” 

Poland is one of 13 European countries with German Leopard 2 tanks in its inventory, according to the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

It has offered to send them to Ukraine and is trying to convince other countries to do the same, but Germany’s permission is typically required to re-export them.

On Sunday, the Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawieckic said that Europe was “wasting time” on the discussions.

However Hebestreit defended Berlin against such accusations.

“Maybe it’s good to weigh and consider a lot of things before you go recklessly into a step that you bitterly regret later,“ he said, adding that other countries, such as Spain, also have qualms about the potential tank transfer.

Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andriy Melnyk has expressed his frustrations as Germany is yet to decide whether or not to send its Leopard tanks to Ukraine.

Speaking to CNN’s Isa Soares on Friday, Melnyk called Germany’s indecisiveness a “disappointment,” after first praising the UK for moving forward with a pledge of Challenger 2 tanks, adding he hoped the move might trigger other countries to follow suit. 

The UK is the “first nation to deliver Challenger 2 main battle tanks and that might be a trigger, hopefully, for other countries but unfortunately not for Germany yet,” going on to describe Germany’s inaction as a “huge disappointment for all Ukrainians.”

Germany has so far failed to reach an agreement with its key Western allies on sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, despite growing pressure from NATO and Kyiv to step up its military aid ahead of a potential Russian spring offensive.

The new German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters on the sidelines of a high-stakes defense meeting at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Friday that no decision has been made yet regarding sending Leopard tanks to Ukraine. 

Melnyk, for his part, further expressed Ukraine’s disappointment with Germany’s announcement while holding out hope that Germany would weigh Ukraine’s concerns and could still decide to send the Leopard tanks.

“The government in Germany has not taken this important decision, not just to first allow other nations like Poland, Finland or Spain or Greece, which do have German battle tanks, to do the same, but also strengthen and create this, as we call it ‘Global Tanks Coalition’ to help Ukrainian forces to push out the Russians and to start the counteroffensive which will allow us to liberate the occupied territories,” he said. 

“We are disappointed, but still the decision has not been taken yet so we hope that the government in Berlin it will take seriously all of the concerns they heard ( on Friday) in Ramstein,” Melnyk added.

“After 331 days of brutal war which Russia has been waging against Ukraine, they are still making an inventory of stocks, of (the) Bundeswehr (the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany) and in the industry, to check whether they have something to send to Ukraine! It is ridiculous.”