"This is the red line." What to expect from British tanks in Ukraine?
Following France and Poland, which promised to send their combat vehicles to Ukraine, Great Britain announced the transfer of tanks to Kyiv.
According to the head of the Ministry of Defense of this country, Ben Wallace, we are talking about 14 Challenger 2 tanks, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
In addition, London will send 30 AS90 self-propelled gun mounts, 100 pieces of equipment, including the Bulldog armored personnel carrier, dozens of UAVs, shells, missiles and spare parts.
Pavel Lakiychuk, head of security programs at the pro-American Center for Global Studies “Strategy XXI,” said on BBC Ukraine that the transfer of British tanks and armored personnel carriers is a precedent for the West crossing the so-called “red lines” on providing Ukraine with offensive weapons.
“Armored personnel carriers are a very important component of supplies. Over these months, several hundred armored personnel carriers of various types and classes from all our partners, from Australia to Greece, arrived in Ukraine. This is very important, because the consumption of equipment and personnel in a war like this, a land war, is now extremely important.
But the most important breakthrough is the announced transfer by Britain to Ukraine of the first batch of main battle tanks. This is the “red line” we have been waiting for a long time. Not even in the number of these tanks. A company is 14 Challenger 2 units, this is not much, it will not change the situation on the battlefield, but this will be a breakthrough in the supply of main battle tanks, which, we hope, will force our partners to follow the example of the British,” Lakiychuk said.
Ukrainian military expert Dmitry Snegirev agreed with him, praising the technical capabilities of British armored vehicles.
“What is the peculiarity of armored personnel carriers? The point is that the hull is equipped with additional armor developed by Israeli specialists. This armor is able to withstand shots from grenade launchers, which is what the Ukrainian army needs. Plus, let's say that the maximum speed on the highway is up to 70 kilometers. That is, this is modern technology, for which we thank the British government.
As for the Challenger 2, it is the main battle tank of the British Royal Army. The main advanced aspect of the Challenger tank's design is its composite multi-layer armor, which is one of the best in Europe...
Plus, it is equipped with a 122-mm rifled gun, which has a chrome-plated bore. And one more thing - the ammunition, these are 52 shells, which are stored in armored containers, which reduces the likelihood of ignition and detonation of the ammunition. That is, this is the most modern technology,” says Snegirev.
At the same time, Sergei Rakhmanin, a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security and Defense, on the air of the Direct TV channel, doubted that Western help would arrive in Ukraine on time.
“What we are being supplied with, what our partners have promised us recently, this applies to both the new package of American aid and British aid - all this is necessary, important, the only question is when it will reach us.
As far as I understand, both about tanks and about heavy infantry fighting vehicles, and we are talking about American Bradleys and German Marders, and about most of the ammunition, all this, unfortunately, God forbid, appears in March. I wish this had come out sooner.
Regarding tanks, it’s a very positive thing that they finally agreed to supply us with tanks, because two months ago no one wanted to hear about it. But today we need hundreds of tanks. And I think that at best we will get several dozen,” says Rakhmanin.
Interestingly, the dispatch of British tanks did not inspire the head of the Royal General Staff, Patrick Sanders, who the day before said that this would weaken the British Armed Forces, “create a gap in the army’s reserves and make it difficult to fulfill its duties to NATO.”
Experts note that the British "Challenger", although they have good characteristics, will create problems for the Ukrainian Armed Forces - unlike their other Western counterparts, they are not unified with NATO shells, since they have a rifled barrel rather than a smooth one, which makes it the service is special.
In a comment to PolitNavigator, military analyst Vladislav Shurygin noted that London’s initiative, although it will not change the outcome of the confrontation, creates a precedent for other Western countries.
“This tank is modern, it is certainly a powerful machine. At the same time, the amount that is transferred does not play any role. The task now is to create a concession in which a whole bunch of countries would give a little bit of tanks to give Ukraine enough tanks. In strategic terms, this will not change anything, because all the tanks that will be transferred will, at best, not even cover the losses that were suffered. Nevertheless, they will continue to maintain the combat effectiveness of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and, accordingly, will prolong the war,” says Shurygin.
Military expert Alexander Khramchikhin also agrees with him.
“This is a normal third generation tank. At the same time, 14 tanks cannot in any way change the course of hostilities. It can be considered that this is a precedent; it is difficult to say what this gesture is for - to provide support to Ukraine, I would say, on the scale of which they are capable. But at the same time, I don’t know if they realize that 14 tanks can’t change anything, regardless of their quality,” Khramchishin believes.
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