The European Union should supply Western-style tanks to Ukraine and speed up the country's accession to the EU.
This was stated by the head of the European Parliament, Robert Metsol, to the AFP agency on Wednesday.
Metsola said she would express her position on this at the EU leaders' summit in Prague on Friday.
"Ukrainians need weapons with which they can fight to take back their territory, and that means, for example, Leopard II tanks, which several member states have," Metsola said in an interview during the plenary session of the parliament in Strasbourg.
Germany, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Norway, as well as non-EU Switzerland and Turkey, have a total of approximately 2,000 tanks.
Metsola said that countries that would like to provide tanks will receive compensation from the EU fund, which has already allocated 2.5 billion euros for military purchases for Ukraine.
"I think we need to have these discussions now, especially as we see Russia's escalation, but also, on the other hand, we see Ukraine successfully pushing out the Russians," she said.
Several EU countries are concerned that large arms donations from their arsenals could jeopardize their own national defense capabilities. However, Metsola claims that the supply of Leopard tanks "will not significantly affect" the overall readiness of individual countries.
The head of the European Parliament also repeated her call to speed up Ukraine's accession to the European Union.
Kyiv has long sought the supply of German-designed Leopard II tanks. But Berlin disagrees, arguing that any such handover must be part of a broader deal between the Western allies.