German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Monday that Berlin won’t be able to replace every German-made Leopard tank that Ukrainian forces lose in their fight against Russia.
His comments come amid reports that Leopards have been destroyed in Ukraine’s counteroffensive. On Tuesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that it captured several Leopards and US-made Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
According to AFP, Pistorius refused to authenticate images circulating online that show damaged Leopard tanks in Ukraine. Appearing to confirm that Ukraine is losing a lot of armored vehicles, Andrii Melnyk, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, appealed for more Western armor, including the Leopard 2 tank.
“The Ukrainian army desperately needs many more Western battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other armored vehicles,” Melnyk said, according to Ukrainska Pravda. “Each Leopard 2 is literally worth its weight in gold for a decisive offensive.”
Germany has provided Ukraine with 18 Leopard 2 tanks from its military stockpiles and is also sending refurbished Leopard 1 tanks. But Melnyk thinks Berlin could do more, saying the supply of Leopard 2 tanks from Germany could be “tripled without jeopardizing Germany’s ability to defend itself.”
Pistorius said that Germany “will not be able to replace every tank that is now out of action.” He added that “unfortunately it is the nature of war that weapons are destroyed, that tanks are destroyed and people are killed.”
After the war, Russia will have a museum of western graveyard summer tour program for their people.
After this war, the new Russian regime will be buying Western equipment because their garbage is worthless. By then Ukraine might be the deciding vote whether or not Russia is allowed to join NATO! Hahaha
It looks like they spike the punch bowl in DC with Don Julio. Go easy.
They can’t replace all the tanks Ukraine loses?
That is not the words of a never-ending supply.
Ukraine is wholly dependent on a unlimited supply of goods because unlike Russia they can not supply themselves.
They better make something happen soon because the tanks will not be replenished if they lose too many.
I wonder if there are limits on other military items or will be soon if they do not start winning this decisively?
They are making something happen. Advances around Bakhmut and along the Southern front.
If there aren’t enough Leopards for replacement, the US has thousands of Abrams in storage.
Sure we will just send a bunch of Abrams over there because you just thought of it.
Thst is not a realistic solution to get around Germany’s recalcitrance. What do you propose to replace what Hungary won’t ship?
That one is not being solved just like those Leppard are not being replaced so what pie in the sky retort do you have for that one?
If anything this war shows that one nation can deplete NATO.
How about we develop peaceful solutions to provide security instead?
Germany plans to buy 18 Leopard 2 tanks and 12 self-propelled howitzers to replenish stocks depleted by deliveries to Ukraine. The tanks order will come to 525 million euros and the howitzers order will come to 190.7 million euros. The tank purchase includes an option for another 105 tanks for 2.9 billion euros
In 9 days of fighting in Ukraine most of this equipment (complete with Nazi regalia) has been burnt. Half a million Euros up in smoke in just over a week.
The US/NATO overall has accumulated the following equipment losses;
442 Aircraft, 238 helicopters, 4585 UAV’s, 426 Anti Aircraft systems, 9939 tanks inc. APC’s, 1122 multiple rocket launchers, 5100 rocket launchers and 10927 military automotive equipment.
This is hundreds of billions of Euro’s gone up in smoke.
… throw in the infrastructure, homes, ecology … and blood; but, however irrational it’s not insanity, but willful criminality of the mind-numbing variety. And all very clearly laid to the account of our ruling western elite, the Davos crowd, and their bootlickers. We need to recall that fleeting wisp of glory.
Not even close to being true; and you have no source to back-up that BS. (Even Putin isn’t saying those numbers!)
We ran nazi nuisance Andrii Melnyk out of Berlin 8 months ago, so now he can only befoul the Ukrainian press, in the Ukrainian language. European Pravda, 12 June 2023:
Maybe “буквально” means literally. Maybe “literal” still means free from figures of speech, exaggeration, or allusion.
Leopard 2 tanks weigh between 55 and 62 metric tons. That weight in gold is worth between 3.5 and 3.8 billion dollars. (Someone had to check this.) So Melnyk meant what he said.
Melnyk either believes that the past week’s offensive was decisive and worth 10’s of billions of dollars and decisive because of Leopard 2 tanks, or he believes the next weeks’ of offensive will be really decisive and worth perhaps 100 billion dollars and really decisive because of Leopard 2 tanks.
Ukrainian bullshit is worth its weight in gold (to certain buyers).
“Kozhen Leopard 2 is literally on the wag of gold for a virile offensive,” the Ukrainian ambassador to Berlin added.
That’s what the translator spewed out.
The whole focus on the Leopards is misplaced. It’s a tank. That’s it! Supposing it really is the best tank in the world? So what? That doesn’t make it a “wonder weapon,” but makes it, instead, most likely, merely marginally better than the second best tank in the world. Much the same could be said for the American Abrams tanks, the British Challenger tanks, and so on. They’re tanks. Not game changers. The Ukraine had plenty of tanks to start the war, and they have quite a few now too. Again, so what?
Tanks, per se, have been shown time and again (including by the Ukies against the Russians’ tanks) to no longer be the “Queens of the Battlefield.” The emphasis now is on missiles, rockets and drones, electronic warfare, pin point accurate intelligence, and countermeasures to all of the above. Not on massed armored columns operating freely, undetected, until they crash through the lines. Moreover, tanks are most effective when operated by crews and leaders experienced on that tank, not by freshly and quickly trained men without experience. And tanks are also most effective when used in combined arms operations,which means not only more training, as in learning how to interact with sappers, infantry, artillery and air support, but in actually having those things to begin with. The Ukraine has very little air support, and not even much air defense, left. Its artillery is heavily outgunned. And, if it has sappers, it apparently doesn’t know how to use them, given the large nunbers of vehicles it is losing to mines.
More broadly, it now appears to be pretty clear that the current state of war favors the defense. Especially dug in defenders. Again, the Ukies themselves have shown this, with their static defense of city after city, slowing the Russian advances down to a crawl. The only way to take apart such a defense is to methodically blast it to smithereens, with stand off weapons, as the Russians did in Bakhmut. That takes time. The other approach, the ones the Ukies are apparently using, is to try to bum rush the defense, with wild armored and infantry charges. That approach not only doesn’t seem to work, but also leads to large casualty figures, and the loss of many vehicles and other equipment.
“The other approach, the ones the Ukies are apparently using, is to try to bum rush the defense, with wild armored and infantry charges. That approach not only doesn’t seem to work, but also leads to large casualty figures, and the loss of many vehicles and other equipment.”
Let’s call it the continuing of aid strategy. The west wanted a counteroffensive to use as a selling point to their publics for more aid. Dead people weren’t a concern.
MoonofAlabama has a drone photo showing at least 5 Leopard 2’s and a recovery tank, all disabled in the middle of a mine field. Considering Germany sent only 18 Leo 2’s, and we have photos of at least 2 more destroyed or captured, that’s a third of the tanks lost in a week- and the ‘main offensive’ has yet to begin? What a waste of fine armor in the hands of crews whose Western training was criminally inadequate.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/06/ukraine-sitrep-destruction-of-its-third-army-issues-to-negotiate.html#more
So far, all the evidence from this war suggests that armor, no matter how “fine,” is obsolete, a waste of time and money that doesn’t produce anything like the results expected of it.