Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of “A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen” and blogs at Andelman Unleashed. He formerly was a correspondent for The New York Times and CBS News in Europe and Asia. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.
CNN
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Going into the war in Ukraine a year ago, conventional wisdom suggested that tanks had seen the best of their days – outflanked and vulnerable to drones or fire-and-forget missiles.
Conventional wisdom is clearly wrong. It’s becoming quite apparent that armored dominance on a battlefield like Ukraine could turn the tide, dramatically.
After weeks of tense deliberation, Germany on Wednesday announced it would be sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine – a move matched by the US, which is providing its own M1 Abrams. Other European nations have indicated they will follow suit.
But the West needs to get the latest generation of tanks in place quickly. The clock is ticking loudly.
“What Russia is trying to do now is regroup,” former Ukraine defense minister Andrii Zahorodniuk told me in a telephone interview from Kyiv, shortly after Germany’s tank announcement.
“They are trying to take their time and call another mobilization,” added Zahorodniuk, who served as minister from 2019 to 2020, and is now co-founder of the security think tank Center for Defense Strategies.
Zahorodniuk said the Russians “will try to create a bigger group, a bigger army and try again. We expect the new offensive in the springtime.”
In other words, it’s time for Ukraine to arm up. And as Zahorodniuk and western defense experts believe, tanks will be the decisive arms of choice in the next battle for Ukraine.
The world watched in wonder – and with a strong dose of schadenfreude – as Russia’s intended blitzkrieg dash for Kyiv in the first days of the war last February dissolved in disaster.
At the time, satellite imagery of a 40-mile-long armored convoy suggested an all-out assault on Ukraine’s…
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