Announcements of sending light armored vehicles to Kiev are followed by the allies. But Ukraine says it needs tanks, the German Leopards and the American Abrams, to liberate more territory. The UK announced yesterday that it will ship 10 Challenger 2s. In the picture, a Ukrainian armored car on the Kharkov front.
Driving a Leopard is Viktor Sevrenko's dream. He poses in front of the tank he has been handling since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, a Soviet T-72. “We have done 3,000 kilometers together since the beginning of the invasion, from Kiev to here,” says Sevrenko at the temporary base of the 3rd Ukrainian Mechanized Brigade, in a village on the borders between the Kharkiv and Luhansk provinces.
The Russian positions are located 15 kilometers away, in the east. The vehicles of the 3rd Brigade are hiding in now empty farms. Despite the emotional bond with his T-72, Sevrenko does not doubt that he would exchange it right now for a German Leopard.
The United States and several European NATO countries have opened a new chapter in the supply of weapons, that of armored vehicles. Since December, announcements of sending light armored vehicles to Ukraine have been happening: Washington has launched the supply of 50 Bradley units; Germany, 40 Marder; in addition to France, which will deliver the even more powerful AMX-10s. But for Ukraine to launch a new offensive it needs tanks. Without these, its army will not advance, assure officers of the 3rd Armored Military Brigade and the 92nd Mechanized Brigade interviewed by THE COUNTRY on the Kharkov front.
The two that Kiev urgently wants are the German Leopards and the American Abrams. Experts assure that the best option, for geographical reasons, are the Leopards, because it is the most common heavy armored vehicle in continental Europe -2,000 units, according to the Financial Times. The problem is that, for their export, the countries that have these vehicles - including Spain - require by contract the approval of Berlin. The government of Olaf Scholz has so far considered that sending heavy tanks would raise tension with Russia, but has been open to giving the authorization if the United States does the same with its Abrams. The United Kingdom announced on Saturday the shipment of Challenger 2 tanks.
The numbers being shuffled by Kiev's allies are, for the moment, modest, compared to the Ukrainian requirements. The commander-in-chief of its armed forces, Valery Zaluzhny, indicated in December that to reconquer the lost territory NATO requires 300 tanks, 700 armored infantry vehicles and 500 artillery pieces. Ukraine had 900 tanks at the beginning of the invasion, according to the British military studies center RUSI, and Russia had 3,200 armored ones. According to the military analysis group Oryx, Ukraine lost about 500 tanks in 2022, and Russia - 1,500.
The command center of the 3rd Mechanized Brigade has been established in the quarters of a farm. Alkut is the code name of the colonel in command. He is 59 years old and a veteran of the 2014 Donbass war. He was trained in the seventies as a tank driver at a Soviet academy. In that decade the Leopard 2s entered service. Why are these better than the Soviet ones, also from those years? “I trained with a T-72, and by then the Leopards were better. In the USSR, quality did not prevail, but quantity. But, in addition, the Western countries were modernizing them, unlike the Soviets”"
Alkut gives several examples of the advantages of the Leopards and the Abrams: their armor; the maneuverability and engine power; their ergonomics, incomparably better (and decisive in many-hour combats). They have night scopes and technology that calculates the movement of the enemy target to shoot more accurately.
Andrei Krevonosk, commander of a T-72 of the 3rd Mechanized Brigade, explains that his tanks have nothing to do against Moderna armored vehicles of Russia, such as the T-80 BVM or the T-64 BV, which do have state-of-the-art optics and engines comparable to the Abrams. “When we capture one, we celebrate it,” says Krevonok. His superior, Alkut, estimates that one Abrams is equivalent in attack power to two or three Soviet tanks.
Ammunition at a minimum
Dvorkin is the commander of a company consisting of 10 T-64s of the 92nd Mechanized Brigade. Under a pine forest near the front, with Russian artillery pounding nearby, dozens of tanks are hidden, most of them under maintenance. “All our machines are in bad condition”" says this sergeant while showing the tracks, visibly worn. Some people's submachine guns can only fire half the rounds anymore, he adds. “These weapons have been used in combat since 2014, and we are under ammunition minimums."
The main, involuntary, supplier of armored vehicles to Ukraine has been Russia. Since the end of March, when the Kremlin troops began to retreat in Kiev and its neighboring provinces, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have reportedly captured about 500 Russian tanks, as well as other vehicles and weapons. Andrii is a lieutenant, he is 32 years old and leads a platoon fighting with a T-64 of Dvorkin's company. His mission on Thursday was to try to repair a T-72 obtained as a war trophy. “Only about 10% to 20% of the tanks that leave us can be used for combat again. The Soviet machinery is very poor”"
Colonel Alkut estimates that one out of every three tanks abandoned by the Russians are used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces; the rest are scrapped to use their components for repairs. Dvorkin also indicates that Russian man-portable anti-tank rockets, RPGs, are much less destructive than the anti-tank weapons that Ukraine has received from NATO, first of all, American Javelins. Dvorkin and Alkut agree that they have tanks that have been hit by up to three Soviet anti-tank RPG missiles and have continued to fight.
For a NATO tank, according to Dvorkin and Alkut, the damage would still be less. “According to the current state of our armored forces, there is no doubt, an offensive is not possible without receiving Western tanks,” Dvorkin concludes. It could be a setback that the Ukrainians have only experience with Soviet armored vehicles. And, in addition, with the Leopards or the Abrams it would be necessary to build a new supply chain from the EU. Dvorkin replies bluntly: "We have achieved more complicated things”"
Andrii gives himself as an example“ "Before February 24, he had no military experience, he worked marketing mobile applications. In 40 days I was trained to drive a tank and now I'm here, standing up to the Russians. Why can't I do it again with a Leopard?”.
“Our machines are all in bad shape," says a sergeant at the front
Berlin has to give the go-ahead to the export of its vehicles
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