Political scientist Solonnikov: The United States and Germany are slow to supply tanks to Ukraine because of commercial interestsThe United States and Germany are slow to supply their tanks to Ukraine, in particular because of some commercial interests.
This opinion was expressed by political scientist Dmitry Solonnikov in an interview with Izvestia on Wednesday, January 25.
The expert explained that the first combat vehicles delivered to Kiev will be destroyed almost immediately, and the type of burning equipment does not particularly contribute to the growth of sales of such weapons.
"The tanks that will attack first of all will be the first to be destroyed — everyone understands this perfectly. The picture of burnt tanks is not the best PR for selling military equipment abroad, so the US does not want to supply Abrams tanks. It seems to be a good modern tank, it seems to be actively bought, for example, by the countries of the Persian Gulf, and then it will all burn up and turn out to be meaningless," Solonnikov said.
He recalled that the myth of the power of the American military-industrial complex has been created for years, and the destruction of this image is not profitable for the States.
In his opinion, Washington is trying to shift the "honor of showing its tanks destroyed" to Europe, but Germany is also not happy about the prospect of showing its Leopard destroyed. It is around this that the West is "trading", the political scientist noted.
At the same time, Solonnikov has no doubt that as a result, NATO countries will definitely supply their equipment to Ukraine, and this will become a new challenge for Russia, because if earlier the Russian military opposed Soviet-style equipment, now they will face modern Western tanks.
"Until now, Soviet equipment was supplied there [to Ukraine], which remained in the warehouses of the Warsaw Pact, understandable to Ukrainians, understandable to us. Another thing is the NATO—style equipment. This is completely different, and we will fight with her in a different way. You need to use it in a completely different way, they have different capabilities: somewhere our equipment is better, somewhere - NATO. Therefore, now the situation will change qualitatively very seriously," he said.
Solonnikov is sure that it is not worth reassuring yourself that Kiev will receive too few tanks, because NATO has set a course for confrontation with Russia to the end, and each side believes in its victory.
"They will try to destroy us, and Ukraine will have a lot of tanks, armored personnel carriers, planes, missiles," the political scientist stressed.
In his opinion, military assistance will continue to be provided to Ukraine.
Earlier, on January 24, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz decided to transfer Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. We are talking about a whole company of 2A6 tanks that are in service with the Bundeswehr.
In addition to countries such as Poland and Finland, which have already publicly declared their readiness to provide Ukraine with a certain number of their Leopard 2 tanks, it turned out that Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark are also ready to supply some of their tanks for the needs of the Armed Forces. However, all this still requires the consent of the German authorities.
The next day, the media reported about the US plans to announce the transfer of about 30-50 tanks to Kiev.
On January 20, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Western supplies of heavy weapons to Kiev would only add problems for Ukraine, but would not change anything in Russia's progress towards achieving its goals.
Western countries have increased military and financial support for Ukraine against the background of the Russian Federation's special operation to protect Donbass, which began on February 24, 2022. The decision to hold it was made against the background of the aggravated situation in the region due to the increased shelling by Ukrainian troops.
