Ukraine: The Crucial Year?
Two short months after a major debate across NATO over whether Ukraine should receive German-made Leopard tanks, Ukrainian soldiers are rapidly completing training to operate these advanced armoured vehicles. Similar training is underway for the UK Challenger 2 and America’s Abrams tanks. Whilst the American tanks are not due to arrive in Ukraine until the Autumn, the Leopards and Challengers are entering service in the coming days and weeks.
As these crucial weapons are rolled out to the Ukrainian military, fighter jets will also soon start to arrive in Ukraine. As with the tanks, it was originally seen as impossible that Ukraine would receive combat planes from NATO members. Indeed, in March 2022, the US specifically blocked a Polish proposal for their MIG-29s, a plane on which many Ukrainian pilots had been trained, to be shipped to Ukraine via a US airbase in Germany. The Pentagon judged that the plan risked escalation with Russia. Contrast that with the news of mid-March that both Poland and Slovakia would send MIG-29s, as well as similar ideas being actively considered by the Netherlands, among others. The definition of “advisable” levels of support to Ukraine has evolved dramatically over the past year.
All of this is in preparation for Ukraine’s counteroffensive. With the advantage of fast-moving tanks, the Ukrainians may try to break through Russian lines in the Donbas, cutting Russian-held territory in the East of Ukraine from its strip on the Sea of Azov coastline, where it joins to Crimea. This area of territory, around fifty miles deep, includes the port cities of Berdiansk and Mariupol. The liberation of the city of Mariupol, largely destroyed after the Russian siege at the start of the war, would represent a major Ukrainian victory. The city is hugely significant to both sides - to the Ukrainians as the site of extensive Russian war crimes including the notorious bombings of a maternity hospital and of a theatre packed with refugees. To the Russians, it is one of their few significant gains from their war, with the siege of the Azovstal steel plant providing a false but convenient narrative of Russia heroically overcoming Ukrainian fascism…
