The growing conviction in Western capitals that they should send advanced battle tanks to Ukraine marks an important shift in thinking among Kyiv’s allies.
“This means that [Ukraine] could go from resisting to pushing Russian forces off Ukrainian soil,” British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said this week as he confirmed the UK would send a squadron of Challenger 2 tanks and dozens of self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine.
With Nato defense ministers set to meet on Friday to coordinate a new weapons package, Western capitals acknowledge that Ukraine may have only a narrow window in which to act – if Kyiv is to launch a successful counterattack before Russia re-armed and strengthened his depleted forces.
“This is an inflection point because Russia is taking steps that clearly show they don’t think the war is lost,” said David Petraeus, a former CIA director and retired four-star general who oversaw the U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Analysts and officials have warned that this changing Western calculus does not necessarily mean an end to the current drip-feed of arms to Kyiv – in part because some Western capitals fear it could lead to a Russian military escalation.
This is an inflection point because Russia is taking steps that make it clear that they do not consider the war lost
A key moment will come at the US Ramstein air base in Germany on Friday, where Britain, Poland and Finland will try to persuade a reluctant Berlin to provide Kyiv with Leopard 2 tanks and, crucially, to allow other governments to do so. The US is not expected to commit to sending US Abrams tanks.
So far, Berlin has refused, fearing the move could escalate the war and leave Germany exposed to Moscow’s wrath. German authorities are adamant that they will not proceed with tanks unless the US joins the initiative.
Behind the scenes, the U.S. supports sending tanks from Germany but is not pressuring Berlin to do so, officials said.
“We are not persuading or trying to manipulate any nation’s decision about what they want to provide,” an administration official said. “We respect these are sovereign decisions and are grateful for any weapons that Germany is willing to provide.”
There is a growing consensus among Kyiv’s supporters that Ukraine needs more offensive firepower to break the stalemate on the battlefield before Moscow piles more mobilized troops on the front lines.
Ukraine needed a “significant increase in support”, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told Reuters at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, adding that the war had reached a “pivotal moment”.
“This is a critical moment,” said Jack Watling, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London. “Ukraine’s armed forces have available reserves and Western aid. Currently, Russian forces are at their lowest ebb. But Russia has already mobilized 300,000 troops. By the end of 2023, Russia’s military industrial production may also begin to increase. So there is a military and political imperative to act now.
Donating Western tanks can provide multiple benefits. This would make Ukraine less dependent on Soviet-era tanks, for which supplies of ammunition and spare parts are limited.
Providing Kyiv with enough artillery ammunition is a real challenge, a Western official said, so if Kyiv had more armor for offensive operations, it would not have to rely so much on artillery bombardment to level Russian positions.
Wallace said another purpose of sending tanks and self-propelled howitzers was to enable Kyiv to achieve a “combined arms effect” – operations involving armor, artillery and infantry. This week, the US began combined combat training for Ukrainian forces in Germany.
Washington promised to send dozens of Bradley infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine © VisMedia
Washington has pledged to send dozens of Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, which are essential for highly mobile maneuver warfare. So far, however, it has refused to provide Ukraine with Abrams tanks, arguing that Ukrainian forces are more difficult to fuel and maintain than the German-made Leopards.
Asked if the U.S. would send the Abrams to Ukraine, Colin Kahl, the U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, said “I don’t think we’re there yet,” citing maintenance and logistical challenges. But he said Berlin should not feel alone if it sent Leopards, pointing to the UK’s decision to send Challenger tanks.
“I think if there was a concern about being alone in providing that capability, that shouldn’t be a concern, but ultimately the German government will make a sovereign decision,” he said.
Kyiv’s partners once considered sending tanks taboo, given their offensive potential and the risk that Russia would view such a move as a casus belli with the West.
Gustav Gressel, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank in Berlin, said that “the Rubicon was crossed a long time ago with the deployment of artillery, armored artillery and Himari [precision-guided rockets]”. Putin’s “red lines” on Western military support for Kyiv were “washed away.”
Washington has backed proposals to send European tanks to Ukraine. Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Patrick Ryder said last week that Britain and Germany could send tanks without US involvement.
“We support any type of capability that will give Ukrainians an advantage on the battlefield,” he said.
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But some European officials suspect that Washington’s refusal to send even a token contingent from the Abrams — thereby giving German Chancellor Olaf Scholz political cover to secure Leopardi — reflects lingering U.S. concerns about the risk of escalation.
Washington has rejected Ukraine’s requests for longer-range precision missiles or advanced fighter jets, such as the F-16, fearing they could be used to strike Russian territory, just as it once did with tanks.
Another problem is that training Ukrainian forces to use modern Western tanks could take months.
Moreover, some Western officials and analysts doubt how much progress Ukraine will be able to make even if it is reinforced with more armor. Although Ukrainian forces overcame weak Russian defenses to retake Kharkiv province in the fall, they made a difficult attempt to liberate Kherson.
“Their strategy is to let the Russians bleed,” said a European security official, “but the Ukrainians are bleeding too.”
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