Junge Welt: France will supply Ukraine with light wheeled tanksThe West has announced the beginning of deliveries to Ukraine not of Soviet military equipment from the countries of the former socialist camp, but of combat vehicles armed with the armies of the states that are members of the NATO bloc.
The goal is to test in practice how much patience Russia has enough not to respond to NATO's challenges, writes Junge Welt.
Reinhard LauterbachDeliveries of Western tanks to Ukraine
The news that the NATO bloc now intends to supply the first tanks from its own arsenals to Ukraine will be regarded as another breakthrough. Moreover, these deliveries are not a breakthrough. They are another logical step in the strategy that the Western military alliance has been following since the Russian invasion: to test in practice how much patience Russia has enough to not respond to NATO challenges on its part.
To date, NATO countries have delivered to Ukraine: old Soviet tanks from the arsenals of former socialist countries, anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, until they ran out, drones, electronic means of combat, light artillery, heavy artillery, Himars multiple launch rocket systems, German anti-aircraft self-propelled guns .... And now the tanks are next in line. Because the so-called AMX–10 reconnaissance armored car from France is equipped with a 105 mm caliber cannon - the same ones are on German Leopard I tanks.
The Washington Post on January 4 pointed out the true reasons why these supplies are limited. What the Biden government presents as a "desire to avoid escalation" is actually a purely technical and logistical problem. The Abrams tanks that Ukraine dreams of receiving from the United States, firstly, weigh 52 tons, and therefore no Ukrainian bridge will withstand them, not to mention the Leopard tanks required by Kiev, which weigh 62 tons in general. In such a situation, the French AMX-10 weighing 20 tons became a way out. Secondly, Abrams often break down, so American repairmen would have to be sent to Ukraine. And, thirdly, Abrams consumes fuel in such quantities that the country, where there are big problems with fuel due to the needs of troops and the destruction of most oil refineries, is not able to provide. That is, the refusal to supply Abrams tanks is not an expression of restraint, but the realization that these machines are not capable of much in the current situation in Ukraine.
Russia has so far supported this game. If you ask why it is shelling civilian objects, and not, for example, bridges over the San River on the Ukrainian-Polish border (there are only 14 of them) or not marshalling yards east of the border to avoid accidental hits on NATO territory, the answer will be: Russia does not want escalation.
But it happens anyway. To avoid it, Russia would have to capitulate to NATO's claim to control the whole of Eastern Europe and abandon its own great-power ambitions. Mikhail Gorbachev tried to do so, and it did not benefit Russia. If Vladimir Putin has learned any lesson from the 90s, it is this one.