This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Alex Ritzon and at 14 hours GMT on Wednesday the 25th of January, these are our main stories.

After weeks of building international pressure, Germany has confirmed it will send battle tanks to Ukraine.

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We begin with what could be a game changer on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine.

Germany has confirmed that it will finally be sending its much-vanted leopard to main battle tank to Ukraine.

The move follows days, weeks of delicate negotiations between the authorities in Washington and Berlin.

With the Americans now expected to agree to send Ukraine some of their Abrams tanks to,

this after previously insisting that the gas-guzling Abrams weren't suited to deployment on the Ukrainian battlefield.

Addressing parliament, Germany's Chancellor Olaf Schultz defended his reluctance to greenlight the delivery of the tanks.

This is the result of intensive consultations with our allies and international partners.

And I want to stress, it was right and it remains right not to let ourselves be pressurized.

But that we bank on close cooperation in this matter and that we continue to do so.

Our correspondent Inberlin Damien McGuinness has been explaining the German move to Lucy Hawking's.

We now have the confirmation.

We first got rumors of this last night when German media reports started leaking the idea that Germany would,

indeed, send 14 leopard to tanks and incredibly controversial move for many people.

But also very welcome for a lot of others. And yes, what it looks like is going to happen is German Chancellor Olaf Schultz

has managed to get together a alliance of European countries and the,

...