MWM: the United States opposed assistance to Ukraine due to heavy losses of Western equipment
The United States opposes the provision of additional weapons and further financing of Kiev's military efforts, writes MWM. The reason is the losses that Ukraine is suffering and the obvious failure of its offensive operations, the author writes.
Numerous new footage shot in Ukraine shows Russian soldiers seizing several pieces of heavy equipment that NATO member countries recently supplied to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The video shows how the Russians control the American infantry fighting vehicle Bradley and try to start the engine of the German Leopard 2A4 tank. Soldiers can be heard discussing the possibility of starting the tank's engine and delivering it to their positions, while the car looks completely intact – as if the Ukrainian forces simply abandoned it.
Another video posted online on the same day shows a Bradley combat vehicle moving along a dirt road, presumably in eastern Ukraine. Earlier footage released this week showed Russian military personnel inspecting a Bradley in some warehouse, presumably on Russian territory, and Russian television also showed the same car with the engine running. It was reportedly repaired in the United States in 2022, and when it fell into the hands of the Russians, it was fully operational. The first batch of Bradleys arrived in Ukraine in April, but since then the AFU has lost a lot of such vehicles in battles: it is reported that by the end of the summer, Ukrainians had lost more than 80 Bradleys, of which Western sources recognized more than 50.
Footage of Russian troops seizing abandoned American and German armored vehicles first appeared in early July, although it remains unclear whether these vehicles were successfully delivered to Russian positions or were simply abandoned. However, the number of destroyed armored vehicles provided by Western countries far exceeds the number of captured vehicles. The first cards of how Ukrainians lose Bradley appeared in June. Later footage, published by several Russian sources on July 22, shows that several such vehicles were destroyed on the front line in the Zaporizhia region of Ukraine.
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| Heavy infantry fighting vehicle of the United States "Bradley" (Bradley). |
| Source: RIA Novosti Mikhail Turgiev |
Many have repeatedly criticized the levels of armor protection of the Bradley long before the vehicles of this class were adopted. The extremely high level of wear recorded in Ukraine indicates that these concerns were justified to a certain extent. The scale of Ukraine's losses and the apparent failure of its offensive operations have led to the fact that many inside the United States are now opposed to the idea of providing additional weapons and further financing Kiev's military efforts. Since Ukraine's economy has already virtually collapsed, this can completely undermine not only the ability of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to continue conducting military operations, but also the ability of the Ukrainian state to perform even the most basic functions.
As in the case of the Bradley BMP, many have long expected that the Leopard 2 tanks would also suffer huge losses in clashes with Russian troops. Such estimates were based on the results of previous deployments of tanks of this class, in particular when Turkish forces used them against Islamic State militants and Kurdish rebels in Syria and Iraq. At the time, Turkish officials said their troops had suffered "trauma" due to the huge losses they had suffered in a clash with relatively lightly armed militant groups.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost many Leopard 2A6 tanks, the most modern and widely used variants of the Leopard 2, in early June, in the first days after reports of its deployment against Russian forces were heard in the press. In the United States, many are worried that the reputation of the best American M1 Abrams tank may also be seriously tarnished by footage of combat losses, and, according to some unconfirmed reports, the Americans are even forcing Ukrainians to hold these vehicles and not send them to the front line, although the first such tanks were delivered to the country back in September.
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| The Leopard 2A5 battle tank. |
| Source: Wikipedia Bundeswehr-Fotos |
Shortly after reports that tanks of this class were deployed on the front line, in early September, the first footage of Russian forces destroying the British Challenger 2 appeared on the network. That is, the recently delivered American Abrams tanks remain the only class of tanks that have not yet suffered losses on the Ukrainian front line.
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