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Everyone is Sending Tanks to Ukraine — But Will They Help?

Jakub Ferencik
4 min readJan 28, 2023

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Everyone’s talking about tanks.

After nearly a year of gruesome fighting, Ukrainians are finally being given the tanks they’ve needed for some time now.

The first battalion will include 40 tanks, including German Leopard 2A6s, which are meant to go up to 50 miles an hour and were originally designed for Ukrainian terrain because of the looming threat of the Cold War in the 1970s.

But can they really help the Ukrainian effort?

There are a number of logistical issues worth considering as well as the fact that many Ukrainian troops will first have to learn to maneuver these tanks to make them useful on the frontlines. Let’s look at the details.

Photo by Kevin Schmid on Unsplash

The news for the approval of tanks being sent to Ukraine is a good one. Many are cheering the news, as they should be. But the provision has also put some questions to our attention.

For the longest time, many were hesitant to provide tanks for a few reasons. Some of them have to do with their own domestic security concerns. What if Putin decided to invade the Baltics? NATO would need to defend its borders and members. Of course, that might be far-fetched — but it’s hard to rule out entirely.

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Jakub Ferencik
Jakub Ferencik

Written by Jakub Ferencik

Journalist living in Prague | Author of “Up in the Air” and “Beyond Reason” on AMAZON | MA McGill Uni | 750+ articles with 1+ mil. views

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