“We have not reached this stage yet”: how the situation around the supply of Western tanks to Kyiv is developing

Washington is not yet ready to supply American Abrams tanks to Kyiv, US Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl said following his trip to Ukraine.

“I guess we haven’t reached that stage yet.

The Abrams tank is a very complex technique.

It is expensive, it is difficult to train on it ... This complex is not the easiest to maintain, ”Kal said.

According to him, the head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, is trying to avoid supplying the Ukrainian side with equipment that is too complicated to operate, repair and maintain.

"Grateful for all the weapons"

The issue of transferring Western-made heavy armored vehicles to the Kyiv regime has been discussed for several months.

So, Kyiv repeatedly asked the FRG to provide him with Leopard 2 tanks, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz refused.

The politician explained his decision, for which he was repeatedly criticized, by the threat of an escalation of the conflict and its escalation into a clash between NATO and Russia.

At the same time, the German media recently reported that the chancellor is ready to allow the supply of Leopard 2 to Kyiv, provided that the United States provides Ukraine with Abrams tanks.

In turn, in the article of the Financial Times, citing a source in the White House, it was noted that the United States does not put any pressure on Germany on the issue of transferring tanks to Ukraine.

“We are not trying to persuade or manipulate any country's decision about what they want to supply.

We reckon with the sovereign nature of these decisions and are grateful for all the weapons that Germany is ready to provide, ”said the representative of the American administration.

• Tank M1A1 Abrams

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• © michaelbwatkins

At the same time, other countries that are armed with German tanks require permission from Berlin to re-export such equipment.

However, the Polish authorities have already stated that they can send tanks to Kyiv without a corresponding sanction from the FRG.

“We agreed with our Ukrainian friends, as well as with partners from Western Europe, that we will transfer tanks together.

Consent is secondary here.

We will either get this consent quickly, or we will do the right thing ourselves,” explained Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

In addition, a number of European states have already decided to send their tanks to Kyiv.

Thus, the British authorities previously announced that they would transfer to Ukraine a batch of 14 Challenger 2 tracked vehicles.

However, the British military was worried about the upcoming delivery of main battle tanks to Kyiv.

This, in particular, was stated by the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom, General Patrick Sanders.

“The transfer of these funds will temporarily weaken our army, this cannot be denied,” The Times quotes him as saying.

It is worth noting that a total of 227 Challenger 2 tanks are in service with the British Army, the production of which was discontinued in 2009.

In turn, France had previously decided to provide Kyiv with a batch of AMX-10RC wheeled tanks.

At the same time, it is not disclosed exactly how many cars will be transferred to the Ukrainian side.

In addition, according to experts, despite the classification of a “wheeled tank”, the AMX-10 is more of an armored personnel carrier, since it is equipped with smaller caliber weapons (105 mm) and is less armored compared to main battle tanks.

Also, Politico, citing sources, informed that the French authorities are considering the possibility of transferring Leclerc tanks to Ukraine.

However, Paris has not yet made a final decision on this issue.

"Force Concessions"

Against this background, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized the West for indecision on the issue of transferring heavy armored vehicles to Kyiv.

“There are times when you don’t need to hesitate or when you don’t need to compare with someone.

When you say that I will give tanks, if someone else also gives tanks, I will help when someone in Europe also helps.

I think this is not a very right strategy, ”TASS quoted him as saying on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

• NATO Headquarters

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• © Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency

According to analysts, Washington does not want to supply its own tanks to Kyiv, seeking to shift the responsibility for this to European NATO allies.

However, according to Andrey Koshkin, a member of the Academy of Military Sciences of the Russian Federation, such tactics, in fact, "undermine the entire enterprise."

“Scholz did not want to give the green light to the supply of German Leopard 2s and, clearly expecting the same from the United States, he was cunning: “I will only deliver my tanks after the US delivers the Abrams.”

And they, in turn, will not be exported to Ukraine, since these machines are bulky, expensive, they consume a huge amount of fuel and lubricants and are very difficult to operate, ”Koshkin explained in a conversation with RT.

He expects the West to send new batches of equipment to Kyiv, but these will be infantry fighting vehicles, not the 300 tanks that Ukraine was counting on.

“At the next meeting they will agree on new supplies of equipment.

It will be announced that this is a turning point, and new military assistance packages will be approved, but not those expected by Zelensky or Zaluzhny (Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. -

),” the analyst believes.

Political scientist Mikhail Alexandrov believes that the United States has a number of reasons not to transfer its main battle tanks to Ukraine.

“The main one is that the United States itself needs such machines for use in a potential conflict, for example, between Russia and NATO in Europe, as well as in Asia or Taiwan.

The second reason is that Abrams are designed for the defense of Western Europe with a developed network of good roads.

They are very heavy, and the heavier the tank, the more difficult it is for it to move over rough terrain.

The United States understands that these vehicles may not show very high efficiency in Eastern Europe against modern Russian tanks, and they don’t want to discredit them on the international arena, ”explained Alexandrov.

From his point of view, such a position provides an opportunity to “escape” to those leaders of the NATO countries who initially did not want to supply such weapons to Kyiv.

“This plays into the hands, first of all, of Olaf Scholz, who clearly does not want to be a pioneer in the supply of NATO tanks to Ukraine and therefore links his actions with the actions of the Americans in this direction.

It turns out a deadlock in which neither the Americans nor the Germans supply their cars, ”the political scientist noted.

As a result, the whole discussion about the supply of heavy weapons to Ukraine boils down to the desire to once again put pressure on Russia, the analyst believes.

“By and large, Ukraine will not be saved, even if they all abruptly decide to deploy their tanks, which will be destroyed.

Kyiv does not have crews for these vehicles, which means that Western specialists will have to fight in them, who will also be destroyed.

The conflict will drag on.

So this is just a new attempt at psychological pressure on Russia in order to force it to make some concessions, ”concluded Alexandrov.