this war has surprised a lot of people in that, when military aid is announced, the country is usually already well underway training UA forces to use it. e.g. m777 and himars systems, which are admittedly simpler than tanks and planes and patriot air defenses. still, it shows that the planning for it has been in motion for weeks at a time, so i’m prepared to be surprised in this case that teams of ukranians are already training on that platform before it is public.
UA had a huge wave of mobilization that were getting trained since the first days of the war, and we know that even with rotations and defensive deployments throughout the country, there are few reports of shortages in ranks, and there is a reserve of servicemen who are being taught in anticipation of eventual western deliveries.
Does anyone anticipate a point at which Ukraine gets NATO air? Tanks are great and NATO tanks are generally better than Soviet era tanks, but tanks are not that hard to take out (see UA 2022). Feels like if UA had a modern air force atm they’d be handle all the challenges they face a lot easier.
it is hard to see that many countries will continue to rely on solely Su or MiG air forces. their production will be depressed, they have been shown to be vulnerable to air defenses, there are terrabytes of data from air battles from ukraine, which will be used to refine homing devices. on top of that, the russian MIC has been exposed as a giant boondoggle. to ask UA to continue to fly them in the mid-term future is telling them to do the impossible.
so, there’s no doubt in my mind that UA military will get built around all-western weapon systems, especially in the air. Of which there is one most widely used, the F-16. so it would effectively cement UA forces as a part of any western alliance, and an invasion like 2022 will hopefully become impossible.
i think at a minimum, poland trained ua pilots on simulators, for both migs and f16s that they might potentially transfer. the process of pilot training is so time consuming and correlates with whether the equipment survives, it’s the only way to do it.
Ukraine recruits have been training on western equipment and western tactics for months already in US, UK, Holland and Poland. This definitely includes Bradley vehicles and Leopard tanks. Planes is more difficult but plenty of rumors some pilots are getting F16 training in the US. No idea what they are going to do with the patriot missile systems as they are by far the most difficult system promised to Ukraine. A reporter in Holland was saying one Dutch patriot system will be deployed at Lviv and mostly manned by Dutch troops. They are already there right across the border anyway.
lots of headlines ranging from “Germany stops all shipments of Leopards until US sends Abrams” to “German chancellor is prepared to OK Leopards transfer, conditioned on US also OKs shipments of tanks”. there is ambiguity whether US and Germany would commit to sending their own tanks, or ok transfers from other countries to Ukraine.
fairly certain that eventually both leopards and abrams will be in this fight, but we are still in the painful waiting stage. fwiw, i am more or less impressed with biden administration seemingly getting bogged down in discussions about one type of armament, but in the meantime releasing another highly effective measure without creating an international scandal around it, e.g. GLSDB.
A helicopter crashed killing senior Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs including the minister himself. No word yet if this was an accident or something else.
No idea what is going on in Scholz‘s head but there are two legitimate concerns:
If Russia can get their hands on a Leopard 2 they can analyze it in depth.
German military commanders are worried that parting with some of the last equipment in good working condition will degrade German military capabilities for years to come.
i don’t think 1) is a concern. plenty of countries have leopards, which takes intel security on it to the next level. 2) might be a topic of the day, but the calculus is wrong. For US the aid to ukraine is 10x cheaper than fighting, and in the end is much like a stimulus to the economy of boeing/raytheon. that’s never a bad deal for germany either, unless leopards get blown up easily. especially since the allies are committed to helping ukraine win.
otoh, trying to wait another month or two to form a winning coalition is expensive. more destruction means a bigger marshall plan for ukraine. it does mean germany will have to replenish sooner rather than later. but what i’m reading from ukraine and russian politicians who take meetings with western governments, the awkward part right now is invoking executive power and scaling up weapons production. in the US, it is an escalation but nothing more. in Germany, it’s also a gross nationalization of a sensitive industry.
