Analysis: Germany and its allies discuss sending tanks to Ukraine 5:28
Pripyat, Ukraine (CNN) --
Just miles from the Belarus border, Ukrainian forces are training for what they hope will be a brutal spring.
Old T-72 tanks — some twice the age of their crews — fire rounds into the mist, while ground troops practice assaulting abandoned buildings.
Part of the training takes place in the eerily quiet city of Pripyat, deserted since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986.
As troops are put to the test, Lt. Gen. Serhiy Naiev receives a dozen pickup trucks armed with heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft weapons, a crowdfunded initiative to help Ukraine repel Iranian-made Shahed drones, which have caused so much damage to the electrical infrastructure of Ukraine.
But Naiev, a burly and affable commander, believes the next phase of this war will be about tanks.
And that means not his old T-72s, but more modern machines like the German Leopard 2s and British Challengers.
Ukrainian officials say they need several hundred main battle tanks, not only to defend their current positions, but also to take the fight to the enemy in the coming months.
“Of course, we need a large number of Western tanks.
They are much better than the Soviet models and can help us move forward,” Naiev said.
“We are creating new military units.
And our next actions will depend on their combat readiness.
Therefore, Western aid is extremely important."
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ANALYSIS |
Why is Germany fighting to agree to send tanks to Ukraine?
Chief among their requests is the Leopard 2, which is relatively easy to maintain and operate, and is in service with many NATO countries.
Both the military and political leadership in Ukraine had hoped that the Ramstein meeting of Ukraine's partners on Friday would give the green light for their handover, but Germany held back.
Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, speaking after the meeting, said that he and his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, "had a frank discussion on the Leopard 2... which will continue."
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Presidential Administration of Ukraine, told CNN on Friday: "We are disappointed.
We understand that some countries have inhibitions.
But the slower this goes, the more soldiers and civilians die.
"It would be significant if Germany took a leading position here."
He argues that "300 to 400 of these tanks would, in fact, outnumber the 2,000 to 3,000 Soviet-era tanks... It would dramatically accelerate the pace of the war and initiate the final stages."
A tank commander in a T-72 during exercises in Pripyat, Ukraine, on Friday, January 20, 2023. (Credit: Matthias Somm/CNN)
Soviet-era T-72s, seen during exercises near Pripyat on Friday, are plentiful but no match for more modern tanks.
(Credit: Matthias Somm/CNN)
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials say they are running low on spare parts for their existing Soviet-era tanks, even as they look to other former Soviet bloc states for supplies.
The Ukrainians fear that a second Russian offensive could begin within two months.
By spring, 150,000 Russians recruited last fall will have been trained and likely incorporated into battle-ready units.
For Ukrainians, it is a race against time.
But essentially they are turning an army based on Soviet hardware into one that uses advanced western weapons very quickly.
They won't get the M1 Abrams main battle tanks, which are powerful but difficult to maintain.
Colin Kahl, the Pentagon's top policy adviser, called M1 “expensive.
It is difficult to train.
It has a jet engine."
Experts also believe that German tanks could make a real difference.
"The Leopard 2 is a modern main battle tank, well protected and with good sensors," Jack Watling, a senior research fellow in Land Warfare at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), told CNN.
“It was originally designed to be maintained by recruits and is therefore easier to maintain in the fight than other NATO designs such as the Challenger 2. There is also an existing production line to keep Leopard 2s stocked with spare parts. replacement".
A Polish Leopard 2 stands in a wooded area during the international military exercise "Allied Spirit 2022" at the Hohenfels military training area on January 27, 2022. (Credit: Armin Weigel/picture-alliance/dpa/AP)
Defense officials in the Ukrainian Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base on January 20, 2023. (Credit: Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images)
But other weapons keep coming: Stryker armored vehicles and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles from the US, howitzers from Finland, the advanced ARCHER artillery system and anti-tank guns from Sweden.
The Ukrainian army has to train units with the new equipment and integrate it into its existing formations.
"The whole unit has to be equipped with the same vehicle, so a whole battalion is equipped with Bradleys, if we get it, or Leopards," Lt. Gen. Naiev told CNN.
Several senior Ukrainian officials have said that Ukraine wants to go to the forefront before Russia reinforces its lines and tactical battalion groups.
The front lines, from the Russian border in the northeast to the Black Sea, have moved little since the Ukrainian advances on Kharkiv and Kherson in the fall.
Podolyak said that rapid deliveries of modern tanks would localize the war.
"It would not spread, but would remain in the occupied territories and be decided by a tank war."
Ukraine needs tanks to clear occupied land quickly, but also longer-range missiles, Podolyak said.
He expects the Russians to "bring a lot more troops, a lot of old Soviet equipment, everything, according to our estimates, that they have left."
The Russians appear to be trying to reduce the vulnerability of their ammunition stocks and troop concentrations by positioning them further from the front lines, perhaps even beyond the range of the US HIMARS systems that Ukraine has used effectively against such goals.
The list of hardware that the Ukrainians want seems to be constantly expanding, but Podolyak replies: “Our guys will not leave the battlefield, even if they are not provided with new weapons.
They will just die more often and more regularly."
"I understand that some countries may feel tired of this war," Podolyak told CNN.
“But we are the ones who are paying the real price of freedom.
We are those whose people are dying due to Russian aggression."
weaponsWar in Ukraine