Western tanks head to Ukraine, breaking another taboo

Increasingly fearful that Ukraine has only a slim window to prepare to repel an

in the spring, Western authorities are moving quickly to provide the Ukrainians with sophisticated weapons that they had previously refused to send for fear of provoking to Moscow.

One hurdle after another has fallen in recent weeks, beginning with the US agreement in late December to send a

A woman walks past a Ukrainian defensive position built in kyiv during the first weeks of the Russian invasion.

(Brendan Hoffman/The New York Times)

then

pledged last week to provide a battery of Patriot missiles, and within hours France, Germany and the United States promised to send armored fighting vehicles to Ukrainian battlefields for the first time.

It now seems likely that modern Western main battle tanks will join the growing list of powerful weapons being sent to Ukraine as the United States and its allies take

to defend Ukraine, especially as its military has made unexpected gains. and has withstood

.

Although Ukraine has been requesting sophisticated tanks since the start of the war, the pressure to meet those demands accelerated this week when the British and Polish governments

urged a change in the Western alliance's stance.

The British signaled that they were about to agree to send a small number of main battle tanks, and the Polish government said it would be happy to send some of its German-built main battle tanks, although Berlin would have to allow it.

Ukraine hopes the increased pressure will persuade German Chancellor

to authorize the export to Ukraine of German-made tanks found in the arsenals of other NATO allies.

Comrades of Volodymyr Kerbut, a rifle division commander recently killed outside Bakhmut, at his funeral in Bucha, Ukraine.

(Lynsey Addario/The New York Times)

The tanks, dubbed the

, are among the most coveted by Kiev, with experts saying that, in significant numbers, they would substantially increase Ukraine's ability to

Russian forces.

"Someone always has to set an example," Ukrainian President

told Polish state broadcaster TVP Info on Thursday.

A spokesman for the German Defense Ministry said the Social Democratic Scholz government had made no decision.

But his coalition partners, the Greens and Free Democrats, support sending the tanks, and on Thursday a senior minister turned up the pressure.

"There is a difference between making a decision for yourself and preventing others from making a decision," German Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck of the Greens said in Berlin.

Designed over a century ago to fight their way through trench warfare, tanks are a combination

.

Armed with big guns, riding on metal treads, and endowed with protective armor tougher than any other weapon on the battlefield, tanks can traverse rough, muddy, or sandy terrain that wheeled combat vehicles might have. difficulties.

In Ukraine, officials say armored vehicles will play a

in battles for control of towns and cities in the eastern provinces bordering Russia.

General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine's top military commander, has stated that Ukraine needs about

and about 600

Western

The sense of urgency to send more powerful weapons partly reflects the

on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine, where the Russians have been trying for months to take the city of Bakhmut and its surroundings, suffering heavy casualties but gaining little ground.

In the past week, fighting has been especially fierce in the nearby town of Soledar, and has gone from block to block and house to house, with

for control of the city.

NATO allies that were once part of the Soviet sphere have handed over their Soviet-era tanks to Ukraine.

But much of the Kiev fleet has been destroyed or worn out by months of battle, and is running low on

, which is incompatible with Western munitions.

Since the war began nearly a year ago, the West has resisted handing over some of its most powerful weapons to Ukraine, fearing it would bring NATO into

with Russia.

But seeing Ukraine's determination to resist, bleak prospects for peace talks any time soon, and stalemate on the battlefield, NATO's allies are caving.

The recently agreed Patriots are the most advanced US-made air defense system and will help protect kyiv and other densely populated areas from Russian strikes that have crippled Ukraine's power grid.

The armored fighting vehicles approved last week are lighter and easier to maneuver on the battlefield than tanks and can carry

, but they are not as powerful.

There are still some weapons that have not been taken into account, such as fighter jets and longer-range missiles that could reach occupied Crimea and Russia itself.

The Biden administration, which leads the coalition of allies supplying arms to Ukraine, is withholding US -made

, which require constant maintenance and special fuel, and which officials say are too scarce to do without. them.

But US officials maintain that they have never stood in the way of Germany or any other nation sending Western tanks to Ukraine.

There are an estimated

in more than a dozen armies across Europe.

Some could be quickly shipped to Ukraine if approved by Berlin, although Ukrainian crews would have to be

to use them.

A senior Western military official said this week that upsetting the balance of power in eastern Ukraine is necessary to break the stalemate in the war, and that sending in enough modern Western main battle tanks and other combat vehicles could help tip the balance.

Without tanks, a powerful component of the ground war, Ukraine is unlikely to be able to recapture significant amounts of territory, the official said.

At the Pentagon, Laura K. Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defense, told a briefing last week that "we absolutely agree that Ukraine needs tanks."

"This is the right time for Ukraine to take advantage of its capabilities, to change the dynamics on the battlefield," Cooper said.

Ukraine is determined to push its own military offensive, be it in the dead of winter or after the muddy spring.

Russia is also telegraphing a spring offensive, a senior Western intelligence official has said, and Ukraine "doesn't want them to catch their breath" between now and when that intensified round of fighting begins.

Camille Grand, a defense expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, who stepped down as NATO's assistant secretary general for defense investment late last year, noted that Moscow appears to be mobilizing hundreds of thousands of new recruits for its offensive. .

That, in part, brought forward the debate on the tanks, he said, "to allow the Ukrainian forces to make significant

now."

Part of the debate, Grand said, centered on whether the tanks would give Ukrainian forces "some sort of decisive victory that would force peace on the Russians, or at least make such significant progress that any negotiated deal would be more on their terms." than in Russian terms".

The question of whether the Leopard should be allowed to be shipped to Ukraine is likely to come to a head at a meeting of senior defense and military officials from dozens of nations, including NATO states, to be held on January 20. at Ramstein Air Base (Germany).

Britain has so far said it is considering sending as few as 10 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine.

Britain has some 227 Challengers, which have

and would find it difficult to replenish their stocks.

Part of the internal debate among British officials is

, a senior European diplomat said.

Rishi Sunak,

the new prime minister, wants to take some leadership in the war, and Britain and Poland appear to be working together to put pressure on Germany.

In a closed-door session of his National Security Council on Tuesday, Sunak outlined a strategy to increase support for Ukraine, likely starting with tanks, to give kyiv a head start ahead of any possible peace talks, according to another senior official. European.

But explicit approval from Washington would be vital to press Scholz to authorize the Leopards, as it was crucial to the decision to send the German-made combat vehicles known as Marders, said Claudia Major, a defense analyst at the German Institute for International Affairs. and Security in Berlin.

"The pressure on the Leopards is increasing from the Poles, the British and the Finns, but it is one partner in particular, the United States, which is more evenly matched than the others," he said.

"With the Ramstein meeting just around the corner, I hope it happens soon."

A senior Biden administration official said Washington had not pressured Berlin to send the tanks to Ukraine, and the German government would make its own decisions about its level of military support.

Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the delicate matter more candidly, he described the talks between Washington and Berlin as "very active" and said the Germans, "like us, have evolved their willingness to provide capabilities as the fighting has changed. over time."

The United States

its allies to refrain from delivering Western tanks to Ukraine, the official said.

The Germans regard such a stance as a dodge, according to Major, which reflects Washington's own unwillingness to send any Abrams tanks to Ukraine.

He has said that one Washington Abrams would be enough to free Scholz to act.

For now, supporters of sending tanks are focused on getting some country to make the first move.

Norbert Röttgen, a German opposition lawmaker and foreign policy expert, predicted that Scholz would relent on the Leopards under Allied pressure, as he previously did on German-made howitzers and tracked armored infantry fighting vehicles.

Scholz and his party "want to maintain a relationship with Russia and with Putin for the future," and Scholz "thinks that if he gives Ukraine the best that Germany has, Russia will perceive it as breaking off a special relationship," Röttgen said.

"But the pressure from the allies is being too strong."

c.2023 The New York Times Company

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