Opinion by Antony Beevor: They said tanks were obsolete. Now, Ukraine can’t get enough of them.
to reduce its tank formations as part of a massive reorganization — but this has less do with skepticism about tanks than with the Marines’ increasing focus on the Far East and Pacific theater, where the terrain is less favorable to the heavy Abrams.
But the Ukrainians face different challenges: above all, how to retake territory wrested from them by a numerically vastly superior Russian force. And offense is the realm where main battle tanks, when used correctly, can produce unrivaled results. Much depends on how they are deployed in combined arms operations, preferably with drone support and air cover from fighters.
Once they arrive on the battlefield, the Ukrainians’ new weapons should prove instrumental in resisting any renewed Russian onslaughts. But if Kyiv can master the art of combining its tanks with infantry, drones and air assets, the Ukrainian army might well want to punch a hole in Russian defense lines in eastern or southern Donbas to provoke a chaotic retreat.
Even so, the West is clearly betting that an influx of main battle tanks can help the Ukrainians make important territorial gains — of which the most critical would involve Crimea. Kevin Kühnert, the secretary general of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s own Social Democratic Party,that there were “no restrictions on the territories that Ukraine could liberate with the help of German tanks,” even if Scholz himself clearly remains nervous.
The thinking is clear. Putin’s reputation and support in Russia were built on the seizure of Crimea in 2014. Its recapture with the help of the “tank coalition” thus represents the best way of bringing him down and avoiding the dangers of a frozen conflict. Only a relatively small advance is needed to bring his bridge over the Kerch Strait to the Crimean peninsula under direct fire, provoking a panic-stricken exit by recent Russian settlers.
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