Ukraine pitches for tanks as Russian threat still looms large
Jan 24, 2023
Pripyat [Ukraine], January 24 : The troops of Ukraine are training hard, but experts and army officials feel that they will need modern machinery and tanks to hold their position against Russia in the conflict otherwise their men will be in a death trap, reported CNN.
Ukraine currently has T-72 tanks that are pretty old to fend off the Ukrainian borders.
The CNN report said that although Lieutenant General Serhiy Naiev posted a few kilometres from the Belarus border has been receiving heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft guns through a crowd-funded initiative to help Ukraine repel Iranian-made Shahed drones, but he feels the next phase of the war will be crucial when tanks will make the difference.
Naiev believes that will mean not the ancient T-72s but more modern machines such as German Leopard 2s and British Challengers, according to the CNN report.
Further, the Ukrainian official believes that they need several hundred main battle tanks to hold positions and take the fight to the enemy.
Naiev said, "Of course, we need a large number of Western tanks. They are much better than the Soviet models and can help us advance."
He added, "We are creating new military units. And our next actions will depend on their combat readiness. Therefore, Western assistance is extremely important".
The leadership in Ukraine had hoped for help from Germany at the Ramstein meeting in January this year. However, the CNN report claims that Germany has held back.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine's Presidential Administration, told CNN that "We are disappointed. We understand that some countries have inhibitions. But the slower this goes the more of our soldiers and civilians are killed".
Podolyak has mentioned that "300 to 400 of these tanks, in fact, would outdo 2,000 to 3,000 Soviet-era tanks...It would sharply accelerate the tempo of the war and initiate the closing stages".
The Soviet-era tanks that are currently being used by Ukraine are running out of spare parts.
The situation may become worse for Ukraine as they fear that Russia's next offence wave may come in the next two months. The CNN report claims that by the spring, 150,000 Russians drafted last autumn will have been trained and probably incorporated into battle-ready units.
Another expert Senior Research Fellow in Land Warfare at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Jack Watling also focussed on the Leopard 2 -- demanded by Ukraine -- as it is a well-protected main battle tank with good sensors.
