I think that’s exactly it, complete desperation. The javelins were supposed to turn the tide; then the HIMARS were; now it’s the tanks. A few months ago, the general opinion among military people seemed to be that sending modern tanks to Ukraine was a bad idea, because the Ukrainian crews hadn’t been trained to operate them. Now Ukraine is seriously depleted (blame their “let’s fight a war of attrition against a much bigger enemy” tactics), and the west has to send them something or risk having Ukraine fight with only small arms. So Ukrainian tank crews are now going to go into battle with a mere six weeks’ training, on machines that normally take about a year to learn to operate properly. It’s a recipe for disaster, in that they may very well end up killing themselves (these things are dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing) without any Russian help whatsoever.
I think that’s exactly it, complete desperation. The javelins were supposed to turn the tide; then the HIMARS were; now it’s the tanks. A few months ago, the general opinion among military people seemed to be that sending modern tanks to Ukraine was a bad idea, because the Ukrainian crews hadn’t been trained to operate them. Now Ukraine is seriously depleted (blame their “let’s fight a war of attrition against a much bigger enemy” tactics), and the west has to send them something or risk having Ukraine fight with only small arms. So Ukrainian tank crews are now going to go into battle with a mere six weeks’ training, on machines that normally take about a year to learn to operate properly. It’s a recipe for disaster, in that they may very well end up killing themselves (these things are dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing) without any Russian help whatsoever.