Supplying Ukraine Russian-Built Military Hardware Will Help Kyiv And Enhance NATO Interoperability

The United States will work with its allies to transfer Russian-built tanks to Ukraine, according to an Apr. 1 New York Times report. The move came after a specific request from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for armor. Ukrainians are familiar with Soviet-era tanks and would likely press any additional tanks it receives swiftly into service.

While the Times’ source for the plan did not say how many tanks and from which countries they will be sourced, many of the United States’ European NATO allies have sizable arsenals of Soviet-era tanks. Slovakia, which is willing to transfer its S-300 air defense missile systems to Ukraine if it can procure U.S. replacements, has modernized T-72 main battle tanks that would be ideal for bolstering Ukraine’s armored forces. Poland, which offered its Soviet-era fourth-generation MiG-29 Fulcrum jets to Ukraine, has hundreds of T-72s. Warsaw placed a $6 billion order for 250 American M1A2SEPv3 Abrams tanks shortly before Russia’s invasion that could replace a significant number of these older Soviet-era tanks.

Transferring these tanks, and perhaps even MiGs and S-300s too, could be a win-win. For all these NATO countries, it would be a chance to rid themselves of these older Cold War-era Soviets weapons systems and modernize their military arsenals with more modern alternatives (Abrams tanks, Block 70 F-16s, and Patriot missiles, for example) that would, in turn, increase interoperability between their armed forces and give them a greater technological edge. Transferring systems like the S-300, in particular — which are also operated by NATO members Bulgaria and Greece — and replacing them with Patriots or other Western-built systems would make sense since those weapons have to be operated as standalone systems by those militaries. Then there is the salient fact that they were designed primarily to shoot down NATO jets. For Ukraine, to reiterate, such transfers would give Kyiv hardware its military has a lot of experience operating and maintaining that can be promptly put into the fight.

Last year, military aviation expert Tom Cooper dismissed a proposal that the United States should provide the Ukrainian Air Force (which hasn’t received any new fighter jets since 1991) with secondhand F-15C/D fighter jets, E-2 radar planes, and KC-135 tankers to replace its aged Soviet-era air force. Cooper correctly pointed out that replacing an old Soviet-era force with a relatively modern American one would undoubtedly cost billions Kyiv doesn’t have and could take decades, certainly not a wise or workable solution for a country that needs to stave off Russian aggression in the short to medium term. Cooper instead advocated a supply of ground-based air defenses and drones. That suggestion has proven prescient, especially considering how efficient Ukraine’s relatively cheap Turkish-built Bayraktar TB2 drones have proven themselves in this war and how Ukrainian air defenses have successfully denied Russia air superiority, never mind air supremacy. Bolstering this force with tanks and other Soviet-era equipment the Ukrainians are proficient at operating could enable its military to hold out longer against the Russian onslaughts and possibly withstand a drawn-out war of attrition in the east.

The U.S. used to procure Russian-built Mi-17 ‘Hip’ helicopters for Afghanistan’s air force. The Afghans were used to those Russian helos and could operate and maintain them. However, after Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, the U.S. stopped doing so and instead pushed the Afghans to replace its Mi-17s with U.S.-built UH-60 Black Hawks. The Afghans lacked the training to operate them efficiently and couldn’t maintain them without the direct support of U.S. technicians. Mere weeks before the Taliban infamously took over the country in August 2021, one U.S. official anticipated that it would have taken until the mid-2030s before the Afghans could independently maintain and operate their Black Hawks!

It seems out of necessity and lessons from such past mistakes that Washington is jumping onboard this present plan to bolster Ukraine’s firepower quickly and decisively to help keep Kyiv on its feet and in the fight.