Less than quarter of pledged tanks to arrive for Ukraine spring offensive
Germany urges allies to speed up delivery of Leopard 2s
By Oliver Moody
February 19, 2023
Less than a quarter of the modern battle tanks the West has promised to Ukraine are likely to arrive in time to counter an anticipated Russian spring offensive.
Kyiv is expecting its supporters to send up to 320 western tanks in total but estimates suggest barely 50 will reach the front lines by the start of April, prompting concerns they will not be enough to have a substantial impact on the fighting.
Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, said his ministers would try over the course of the Munich Security Conference, which concludes today, to rally partners to hand over more of the 80 Leopard 2 tanks that are supposed to make up the backbone of the European contribution.
However, Scholz conceded that the main effect might be symbolic rather than a strategic breakthrough, adding that a portion of the tanks were likely to be older and less versatile.
Edgars Rinkevics, the Latvian foreign minister, called on his country’s allies to deliver the tanks and overcome their cautious tendency to cling on to weapons. “Do whatever it takes to get them there as quickly as possible,” he told The Sunday Times on the sidelines of the conference.
Rinkevics argued that the nature of the war had been widely misunderstood and the West had to prepare for a long, gruelling struggle against Russia, digging deep for donations to Ukraine while putting the arms industry on a war footing to replenish supplies.
“There is still a kind of feeling — and I find this also in my own military — of, ‘Let’s not give [Ukraine] everything’,” Rinkevics said. “Defence staffs are still thinking they need to keep something back … [But] we need to fully mobilise the defence industry. It’s not yet catching up. The Russians are working three shifts [a day] in their factories. The West is working one shift. That’s where we need to close the gap.”
In an emotive video address at the opening of the conference President Zelensky likened his country to David standing before Russia’s Goliath and appealed for Ukraine’s allies to hand his country the “sling” needed to bring down the giant. That includes additional artillery, air defence systems and ammunition but it is the promise of advanced tanks that has become the central sticking point.
“Western-designed tanks can make a big difference for Ukraine on the battlefield but only if they are sent in sufficient numbers,” said Benjamin Tallis, a security policy expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations. “It’s time to stop the homeopathic doses of weapons and give Ukraine everything it needs to win as fast and at the lowest human cost possible.”
After Britain got the ball rolling with a pledge to deliver 14 Challenger 2s, Germany announced that it would form a multinational coalition to send 80 German-made Leopard 2 tanks, which are prized for their abundance of spare parts as well as the accuracy with which they can fire while on the move. As part of the same deal, the US said it would supply 31 M1 Abrams tanks. Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands later trumpeted an agreement to refurbish and dispatch up to 178 older Leopard 1A5 tanks, most of which were manufactured during the Cold War and have since been retired.
Yet the grand plan has run aground amid recriminations between European states and signs that the maintenance systems are malfunctioning. So far the UK has vowed to send four Challenger 2 tanks in its first consignment, a decision described by one senior European official as “logistically bullshit” because of the difficulty of integrating such a small number into an operational tank unit.
At the conference yesterday afternoon Rishi Sunak cited the provision of UK tanks and his administration’s decision to begin training Ukrainian pilots to fly Nato-standard fighter jets as examples of how Britain was playing its part. He said the UK was “ready to help” any country in a position to provide fighter jets that “Ukraine can use today”.
The 80 Leopard 2 tanks are supposed to come in two 40-strong battalions led by Germany and Poland respectively. Warsaw’s unit, made up of slightly older models including 14 from Polish stocks, is thought to be making progress. However, the more modern German-led battalion, with 14 German Leopard 2A6 tanks at its core, is still less than half complete.
Canada is sending four Leopard 2 tanks while Portugal will hand over three in March and Norway says it will, at some point, deliver eight. It is understood that Finland is also preparing to send a handful of Leopard 2 tanks but is reluctant to disclose how many.
Other states in a position to contribute Leopard 2 tanks — most notably Spain, Greece and Turkey, which are thought to have more than 300 each — have been warier.
The US tanks may not arrive until next year. Because of their age the Leopard 1 tanks will take time to renovate. France has hinted that it could provide some of its own Leclerc tanks but has yet to make a public commitment.
German officials have spent the week briefing about their frustration at the lack of support, particularly after Berlin came under enormous international pressure to lead the initiative. Boris Pistorius, the defence minister, said the response had “not been exactly breathtaking, to put it mildly”. Asked on Friday why the tanks were taking so long to materialise, Scholz said: “That is a question I have to ask to others, especially those who were so much urging me to act in a special way.”
In a further headache for Berlin, a significant number of the weapon systems it has sent to Ukraine could not be repaired because of a bureaucratic wrangle over a German-run maintenance depot in Slovakia, about 20 miles from the Ukrainian border. About a dozen self-propelled howitzers are in limbo. Several Gepard armoured flak cannons and multiple rocket launchers have also had to be taken back to mechanics in Germany on a 1,250-mile round trip via Poland.
Jaroslav Nad, the Slovakian defence minister, said the weapons technically had to be classified as imports from Ukraine and the German company running the facility had failed to follow the right customs procedures. However, he said the German authorities had since taken steps to resolve the problem.
Beyond talk of weapons, Sunak called for allies to begin discussing a new Nato charter to help protect Ukraine from “future Russian aggression” before the alliance meets in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, in July. He endorsed the idea of Ukraine joining the alliance in time but insisted there must be new security guarantees for the country before then. With one eye on Vilnius, he urged other western leaders to commit to providing “Nato capabilities” for Ukraine’s armed forces to secure its borders for the future.
This article is from The Times