“It’s a Sign of Helplessness”

Vladimir Putin really needs military success in his war in Ukraine, but the Russian military continues to make slow progress. Bakhmut and Avdiivka are slowly being encircled by Russian troops, but so far the Ukrainian army has managed to hold the cities in the Donbass – with heavy casualties on both sides.

But while the Kremlin boss has to send increasingly old equipment into battle, more and more modern Western combat and infantry fighting vehicles are arriving in Ukraine. In an interview, military expert Christian Mölling talks about the chances of a successful Ukrainian counter-offensive and criticizes Germany’s long hesitation to support the Ukrainian army with heavy weapons.

t-online: Mr. Mölling, more and more modern battle tanks from the West are arriving in Ukraine. Could this be the turning point in the war?
Christian Mölling: I would be careful there. Only two dozen Western main battle tanks have arrived in Ukraine. There aren’t many. At best, they can help a Ukrainian offensive at some critical points in the front line.

After all, Western tanks are technologically superior to their Russian counterparts.
Correct. Ukraine is getting state-of-the-art tanks, while Russia is clearly bringing in WWII equipment. In a direct tank duel, that would be an obvious choice, but the Russian army obviously takes advantage of the crowd. And also the tanks on the Ukrainian side will break down. Ultimately, how effectively she uses the device from the West will be decisive.

How crucial to the war can the tanks be?
Battle tanks are an important part of the offensive, but they are not a panacea. Quality and quantity work strongly together in wars. Of course, if Ukraine had more modern tanks, that would also help more. But if they only have bad tanks left, then they must have a lot of them.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine could not launch the counter-offensive due to a lack of ammunition. Is this a scam?
Ammunition is always a problem, of course, because Ukraine has to fire a lot of it. The same applies here: more ammunition also helps more. Because the Ukrainian army should always have reserves. But I cannot say whether Zelenskyy wants to reassure Russia or whether the Ukrainian army actually needs more ammunition for an offensive. That would be speculation.

It is also likely difficult to calculate the exact ammunition requirement of an offensive, especially as Russia is also preparing for this scenario and building defense lines.
Precisely. The Russian army has not been unmoved by the fact that it lost another large part of Ukraine’s territory last year. This has left its mark and of course Russia is afraid that more breakthroughs could be made at the front. That would be politically catastrophic for Putin, and should Russia lose the land bridge to Crimea in southern Ukraine, the Black Sea peninsula would also be under threat.

Why this?
Once the south is even partially liberated by the Ukrainian army, the risk to Crimea increases significantly, as the peninsula is difficult to supply without the captured land bridge. Then Ukraine would have a better chance of attacking the Crimean bridge again.

You once said that Russia had learned from its failures. Wouldn’t that be why the West should have accelerated its arms shipments? Aren’t the tanks too late now?
That was too late. Ukraine proved last year that it can retake territory. Many Western countries – including Germany – should have translated this knowledge more quickly into more practical support. Chancellor Olaf Scholz also said it was about retaking territory. But if we do not enable Ukraine to do this, we will have nothing but empty words. If we had thought that the Ukrainian military could do this faster, they would have completely different options now.

So the German hesitation was also due to the fact that the German government underestimated the capabilities of the Ukrainian army?
For Germany I would sign it like this. In Berlin, at the beginning of the Russian offensive war against Ukraine, it was assumed that Russia would soon win. The strategists in the chancery seem to still have their old stereotypes and they still don’t seem to believe that Ukraine is capable of winning this war. Because Germany also has no experience with such war decisions, the federal government often does not immediately dare to step on the ice that Berlin considers thin.

The federal government probably wants to follow in the footsteps of the United States.
Americans think, looking at Germany, that we still haven’t understood that there is war in Europe. They don’t understand the German quarrels and really lose faith in us, even though the Chancellery doesn’t want to see it.

For US President Joe Biden, the relationship with Ukraine is not without political risk. After all, there will be a presidential election in 2024.
Biden has made himself vulnerable by promising to deliver Abram’s main battle tanks. So that Germany can deliver Leopard 2, the US president threw himself under the bus. Conservative TV channels in the US rattle that US support for Ukraine is not in the national interest. In the election campaign there will also be the fact that Germany is not doing enough. So Biden will have to stick his neck out for Germany and we are not doing anything to support him. This makes his re-election less likely.

Is the federal government doing enough?
Germany must provide what Ukraine needs. In case of doubt, the federal government must draw up a supplementary budget. Last year we ran out of ammunition and spare parts because we ran out of money on the finance line. That’s incredible. The war is raging and the example shows that parts of German politics still operate in peacetime.

Ultimately, Russia will also have to move durable war equipment to Ukraine if Putin wants to continue the war. The Kremlin has now announced that it can deliver 1,500 tanks annually. Is this realistic?
Either this is Russian propaganda or Russia is now sending WWI tanks. There is already a joke going around that Putin could reclaim the T-34 tank standing here at the war memorial in Berlin. I can’t judge the quantity, but we are definitely seeing a declining quality of Russian war equipment in Ukraine.

Significantly, the Kremlin is now threatening Russia’s defense industry with telegrams from Josef Stalin.
This is a sign of helplessness. The Kremlin could shoot people en masse or send them to the Gulag, but that won’t give them more tanks. Due to the lack of certain Western technologies, Russian tanks are more difficult to produce and less powerful. For example, the Russians may no longer be able to build good thermal imaging systems. This means that their tanks are no longer capable of night combat, unlike western tanks.

Thank you for the interview, Mr Mölling.