Ukraine Quietly Receives Tanks From Czech Republic to Support War Effort
By Drew Hinshaw & Yaroslav Trofimov, Apr. 5, 2022, WSJ

Ukraine has captured 176 Russian tanks, 34 self-propelled artillery
pieces, 116 armored fighting vehicles, 149 infantry fighting vehicles,
23 multiple-rocket launchers, and 45 armored personnel carriers,
according to Oryx, an open-source intelligence blog that only counts
visual evidence of equipment capture. Many, if not most, of these
pieces—as well as a large number of Ukraine’s own tanks and fighting vehicles—would need to be repaired before use.

Russia’s campaign of missile strikes across Ukraine has targeted in particular the country’s defense industry, destroying facilities where
such repairs and refitting could take place—something that makes the
Czech and Slovak cooperation particularly valuable.

Western govts initially expected Kyiv to fall within a few days, and
equipped the Ukrainian military mostly with shoulder-fired missiles
such as NLAW, Javelin and Stinger that could be used by small insurgent
units. The Ukrainian military, however, has managed to prevail over
Russian forces around Kyiv in a large-scale conventional war, using
long-range artillery, tanks and aircraft. It is now trying to stop
Russia from advancing in the eastern Donbas region and to reclaim Russian-occupied areas in the south of the country—missions that
President Zelensky has said would be impossible without a steady supply
of heavy weapons.

A donor’s conference of some 35 nations, convened by the U.K. in
London last week, agreed to supply Ukraine with long-range artillery, antiaircraft systems and infantry fighting vehicles, but stopped short
of endorsing the transfer of tanks.

So far, the Czech Republic has sent slightly over a dozen modernized, Soviet-designed T-72M tanks, said Czech defense ministry officials.
The Central European country has also sent howitzer artillery pieces
and BMP-1 amphibious tracked infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine,
officials said.

These weapons supplies were funded by the Czech govt, and private
Czech donors who have chipped in to a government-backed crowdsourced fundraising campaign to arm Ukraine. Officials on NATO’s eastern flank generally worry that Western weapons and ammunition supply fall far
short of what Ukraine needs considering the intensity of the war. In
one day, Ukraine uses about as much weaponry as it receives in a week,
a senior Polish official said.

NATO countries are looking to supply additional and more-advanced
weapons systems, such as air-defense systems and U.S. Javelin antitank weapons, the alliance’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday.
He said allies are already supplying Kyiv with fuel, ammunition, helmets, protective gear and medical supplies. NATO expects Russian troops to
make a big push in Ukraine’s southeast in coming weeks and wants to
quickly resupply Kyiv’s troops, Mr. Stoltenberg said.

Central European govts, with the notable exception of Hungary, are
broadly eager to help rearm Ukraine, but some officials are nervous
about depleting their own stockpiles of weapons and ammunition.

Several of those govts are turning to the Biden admin for assurances
that the U.S. will help replace equipment they are donating to Ukraine.
Czech supplies were reduced in 2014, when back to back explosions
destroyed two warehouses holding more than 150 tons of ammunition.
The government later blamed the blast on two agents from Russia’s
military intelligence service.

“Much more, several times more, can be done if we join forces with
other allies,” said Czech Deputy Defense Minister Tomáš Kopečný.

Slovenia, avowedly supportive of Kyiv, has been sending available
military equipment to Ukraine from the beginning of the Russian
aggression, its Prime Minister Janez Jansa told the Journal, to a
point where it has run through its own stockpiles.

“If France, Germany or U.S. sent the same share per capita, Ukraine
is already liberated,” he said. “Unfortunately, our reserves are
depleted and now we try to replace equipment…with new delivery from
U.S.,” he said. “Unfortunately, all procedures were slow, but [have] accelerated somehow after Bucha massacre.”

Moscow has warned that it considers arms shipments legitimate targets.
So far, however, it hasn’t been able to choke off the daily military shipments to Ukraine from Poland, Romania or Slovakia. Russia’s air
force, so far, also hasn’t demonstrated the capacity to disrupt
military convoys between the border and front-line staging areas.

Poland, the staging ground for most of the weaponry going into
Ukraine, also has a large collection of T-72 tanks, and is expecting
a fresh delivery of 250 American Abrams tanks. Asked if Warsaw would
provide the Soviet-designed tanks, Jakub Kumoch, the head of the
International Policy Bureau in President Andrzej Duda’s office said, “Every conversation regarding whatever support for Ukraine is a
conversation taking place between Poland and its closest allies,
taking into account the needs of Ukraine and taking into account the aspiration to end as quickly as possible the war.”

One road has been effectively closed off to NATO weapon shipments,
however: the route through Hungary, whose Prime Minister Viktor Orban
was re-elected Sunday after vowing to block NATO from using his country
to transport weapons to Ukraine.

Australia said this week it is flying Bushmaster armored vehicles to
Europe for delivery to Ukraine, with the first four already painted
in Ukrainian colors.

Beyond tanks, Central European govts, including the Czech Republic,
are weighing the risks of letting Ukraine bring war-damaged equipment
into their countries for repairs. Slovakia, which has no tanks available
to give, has discussed the issue, a senior Slovak official said.

Those deliberations are part of a realization that Russia’s war with
Ukraine could drag on for months if not longer—and that, in a war of attrition, Russia’s overwhelming advantage in equipment could tilt
the scales in Moscow’s favor.

“If the war is going to get longer and longer, the war equipment
that is being damaged needs to get serviced,” said a Czech defense
ministry official. “Ukrainian repair houses are 100% busy, and they
are asking other nearby allies to help them with repairs.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-quietly-receives-tanks-from-czech-republic-to-support-war-effort-11649160666

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