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29 April 2022

Can Western Tanks, Artillery, And Missiles Save Ukraine? Don’t Count On It.

Daniel Davis

On Monday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said one U.S. objective in its support of Ukraine was to “weaken” Russia. Former NATO commander Gen (ret). Wesley Clark recently told CNN that one way to accomplish that goal is to send Ukraine “500 tanks, a couple thousand tubes of artillery and rockets.” And, he added, “we’ve got to get (all those tanks and artillery tubes) moving if we’re going to break” Russia’s offensive in the Donbas.


While it may seem self-evident that Ukraine could defeat Russia’s attack if the West provided large numbers of tanks to the front quickly enough, the difficulties and challenges of combat realities make such an outcome highly unlikely. In a best-case scenario for Ukraine, it would take the better part of a year to be able to produce an armored combat capacity strong enough to expel the Russian army from Ukrainian territory – and as explained below, even with such weapons, Ukraine may still not succeed.

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