Igor Zaytsev's blog

The tank saga continues. After Poles announced they will be ready to supply Leopard-2 tanks to UA despite objections of Germany as the tank’s original equipment manufacturer (OEM), the Germany came out with the statement saying they were never approached by anyone with the request to supply those respective countries’ Leopard-2 tanks to UA. And if they will, then Germany would allow it. So now Poles have green light to supply their own Leopard-2 to Ukraine.

Some American legislators push for their government and Pentagon to supply some “symbolic” number of M1 Abrams tanks to UA, to demonstrate unity among NATO members in support for Ukraine or whatever. Those are the people who don’t understand the real reasons the Pentagon is not eager to see Abrams tanks burning in UA. Or maybe they do, but just don’t care, if it will somehow promote their political interests.

The BMPD blog and Telegram channel uploaded some documents regarding the armor protection of the early Leopard-2 versions (up to and including Leopard-2A4). According to those documents, the armor protection of those versions can only protect from some older 100-mm (T-55) and 115-mm (T-62) anti-armor rounds. It is practically useless against modern 125-mm anti-armor rounds or modern anti-tank missiles. Since whose older versions are the ones mentioned so far as candidates to be supplied to UA, they would be very vulnerable in tank duels against T-72/-90 models. This being said, while T-72 and more modern Soviet/Russian tanks should have better armor protection, the Leopard-2 120-mm canon is very capable, and could present the same level of danger for Russian tanks, if modern anti-armor rounds are used. While I couldn’t verify the validity of forementioned documents, the BMPD is a serious source, an unofficial outlet of the Russian CAST military think tank.

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Netherland’s officials announced they will ask the military to examine the possibility of providing nation’s F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. This is a pointless statement, since any serious intention would first and foremost require receiving a US approval to reexport its fighter jets. Since US would almost certainly deny any such transfer, and since it was never asked to approve such transfer, the Netherland’s gesture is an empty one, made for political or PR reasons.

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The Russian forces have activated in the Zaporozh’e region. Initial attacks caught the Ukrainian defenders of the first line in surprise. This has allowed Russians to advance, taking a number of villages. Soon after Ukrainian Army managed to activate its reserves and move in to stop the Russian advance. Currently, the fighting is mostly positional, with heavy use of artillery on both sides in the attempt to prevent any attacks and counterattacks, and small commando forces snooping in the no-man’s-land to find targets for artillery strikes and to detect any weak points in enemy’s defence.

Many commentators already came out saying this is the long awaited big Russian Spring offensive. If so, this tactical offensive seen so far is intended as combat recon only, considering the level of units taking part in it (somewhere at battalion level, probably battalion tactical groups, it seems). That might be so, but it also might be an attempt to fool Ukrainian General Staff into moving reserves to Zaporozh’e region, away from the real offensive. Or it might be an exercise in pulling Ukrainian reserves from the Artemovsk (Bakhmut) area, in preparations of its capture. The bottom line is, we don’t know. And up until now, nothing suggests it is in fact the Russian major spring offensive.