House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul released a joint statement Thursday urging the administration and our allies to transfer critical weapon systems, including tanks, to Ukraine in their war with Russia.
“The current handwringing and hesitation by the Biden administration and some of our European allies in providing critical weapon systems to Ukraine stinks of the weak policies of 2021, such as not sanctioning Nord Stream 2 or providing U.S.-origin Stingers before the full-scale invasion,” Chairmen Rogers and McCaul wrote. “While those policies failed to deter this conflict, the current indecision and self-deterrence will prolong it – costing Ukrainian lives. Now is the time for the Biden and Scholz governments to follow the lead of our U.K. and Eastern European allies – Leopard 2 tanks, ATACMS, and other long-range precision munitions should be approved without delay.”
Western leaders remain divided on how much aid should go to Ukraine. On Friday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with defense leaders from 50 countries at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting at Ramstein Air Base, Germany.
“What we’re really focused on is making sure that Ukraine has the capability that it needs to be successful right now,” Austin said after the defense leaders failed to reach an agreement on sending tanks and long-range missile systems to Ukraine.
The U.S. announced a new $2.5 billion package of weapons and equipment Thursday for Ukraine, including Stryker armored vehicles, for the first time. The U.S. stopped short of supplying Ukraine with M1 Abrams main battle tanks.
The U.S. has supplied Ukraine with tracked Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and powerful HIMARS multiple-launch rocket systems.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the U.S. and other nations for the weapons but insisted that Ukraine needs western tanks.
“I can thank you hundreds of times,” Zelensky told the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, “but hundreds of thankyous are not hundreds of tanks.”
Ukraine has upgraded the armor and technology of its leftover USSR tanks from the 1970s and 1980s. Many leaders insist that Ukraine needs modern Western tanks with more firepower.
After a five-hour meeting on the Ukraine situation, there was no agreement on sending tanks to aid the Ukrainians.
The U.S. has not provided Abrams tanks, and Germany has refused to supply Leopard 2 main battle tanks, despite pressure from allies who say that the tanks are needed on the frontlines.
U.S. officials insist that the Ukrainians would be better served with Leopards because they are easier to operate and are powered by less expensive diesel fuel versus the jet fuel that the fuel-guzzling Abrams engines require.
Germany, to this point, has refused to give Ukraine Leopards and has refused to permit other countries who have received the Leopards to transfer them to Ukraine. Poland has pledged to provide Ukraine with 14 Leopards but can’t without German permission under the defense agreement between the two nations.
Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak was optimistic that there was progress on this issue in Friday’s meeting.
Russia is believed to be planning a major new offensive deeper into Ukraine either late this winter or early in the spring.
Russia invaded Ukraine almost a year ago. A major effort to take or encircle the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, ended in disaster for the Russians. Russia made deep inroads into eastern Ukraine, but a Ukrainian counteroffensive in August reclaimed much of the territory that Russia had taken. Russia still holds a large amount of Ukrainian territory in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
“We have no doubt that the current masters of Russia will throw everything they have left and everyone they can muster to try to turn the tide of the war and at least postpone their defeat,” President Zelensky said recently.
In December, Ukrainian Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, the commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, told The Economist that Russia is amassing some 200,000 troops for “another go at Kyiv.”
Western military analysts consider that unlikely, given the spectacular disaster that the last Kyiv campaign was for Moscow. They instead believe that a more limited assault in eastern Ukraine to take Ukrainian positions around Donetsk and the rest of the Donbas region is a more likely scenario.
There is still a threat that Belarus could invade Ukraine, forcing Ukraine to fight a two-front war in both the north and the east.
Russian President Vladimir Putin did travel to Minsk in December to meet with Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko.
“Russians are setting up for a decisive effort in Luhansk,” Russia researcher George Barros told The Hill. But that it “could mean a Russian offensive or it could also mean a Russian defensive effort designed to defeat a Ukrainian counteroffensive.”
Ukraine still holds some territory in Donetsk, including the city of Bakhmut. Russia has just taken the town of Soledar, which might indicate a Russian effort to encircle the Ukrainian defenders at Bakhmut.
Luhansk and Donetsk are two of the four Ukrainian regions that Russia illegally annexed.
Many defense analysts question if Russia is even capable of reversing its losses, including the cities of Kharkiv in the east and Kherson in the south to Ukrainian counteroffensives in August and last fall. Russian tanks have proven vulnerable to American-built Lancer missiles, and the Russian Air Force has taken heavy losses to western surface-to-air missiles. Ukraine has even sunk the powerful Russian cruiser Moskva.
There is also speculation that Ukraine could be preparing its own major counteroffensive to retake more of the Donbas.
Rogers was chosen to be the Chairman of the powerful Armed Services Committee last week after Kevin McCarthy won the Speaker of the House position for the 118th Congress. Rogers is serving in his eleventh term representing Alabama’s Third Congressional District.
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