Ukraine: Latest news – Why is Ukraine asking Germany to stop sending tanks?

Leopard 1A5 main battle tanks arrive at a military training ground where Ukrainian tank crews are trained in their operation and maintenance by the German and Danish militaries Photo: Sean Gallup Staff/GETTY

Today on Ukraine: The Latest we bring you news from the front, analyze this week's events in New York at the UN and discuss the rather unique story of Ukraine asking a major Western country to stop sending tanks.

ukraine podcast 21 09 23

Today the former commander of a tank regiment & Chemical, biological and nuclear weapons expert Hamish De Bretton-Gordon. He breaks the story of Ukraine asking Germany to stop sending tanks.

The Ukrainians really wanted Western armored vehicles. But now they have four types of it. They have Leopard 1 and Leopard 2, they have Challenger 2 and Abrams, which are just crossing the border now.

All tanks are very different, they all need to be looked after. In fact, they require careful care and maintenance, and when they are all different, they have different engines, different ammunition, different tracks, and so on.

I think that handing over to the Germans a hundred Leopard 1s that were destined for Ukraine for them not to work is really not good.

They've been sitting in storage for 10 years now and I can think and I think the Leopard 1 equates to a Chieftain [tank] and gosh, imagine if you locked up your Chieftan for 10 years and then took it out of the garage ? Almost every print would have been blown and it would have taken weeks, if not months, to get it running again.

Today's podcast host Dominic Nicholls (Assistant Defense Editor) continues Hamish's point:< /p>< p>This emphasizes once again: warm oil. We have already talked about warm oil, these are the components of combat effectiveness.

For example, you go and buy kits, you go and buy a tank, you go and buy a pistol, you go and buy body armor. But if you don't have the cool oil, the training, the equipment, the personnel, the information, how are you going to use it? Infrastructure, doctrine, organization, information and logistics. Each of these boxes needs to be ticked a little, otherwise you just have something lying around in the tank park.

Dom summarizes what he sees as the problem:

I think what's happening here too with these old Leopard 1s is that the logistics tail was such that they just didn't have the people who knew how to fix them. more. So while most of the tank might work, small parts of it might not. You'll need everything to get the job done!

Listen to Ukraine: The Latest, The Telegraph's daily podcast, using the audio player at the top of this article or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast app.

The war in Ukraine is changing our world. Every weekday, The Telegraph's leading journalists analyze the invasion from all angles — military, humanitarian, political, economic, historical — and tell you everything you need to know to stay informed.

Our< Strong> Ukraine: The Latestpodcast is your trusted source for the latest analysis, live reactions and on-the-ground reporting from correspondents. We have been broadcasting since the very beginning of the full-scale invasion.

Ukraine: Regular contributors to The Latest are:

David Knowles

David is head of audio development at The Telegraph, where he worked for almost three years. He reported from all over Ukraine during the full-scale invasion.

Dominic Nicholls

Dom is deputy editor (defence) at The Telegraph, having joined in 2018. He previously served in the British Army for 23 years in tank and helicopter units. He had operational deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland.

Francis Dearnley

Francis is assistant comment editor at The Telegraph. Before working as a journalist, he was chief of staff to the Chairman of the Prime Minister's Policy Council in the Houses of Parliament in London. He studied history at Cambridge University and in the podcast reveals how the past sheds light on the latest diplomatic, political and strategic events.

They are also regularly joined by The Telegraph's foreign correspondents around the world, including Joe Barnes(Brussels), Sofia Yang (China), Natalia Vasilyeva (Russia), Roland Oliphant (Senior Reporter) and Colin Freeman (Reporter). Also in London are Venice Rainey (foreign weekend editor), Katie O'Neill (assistant foreign editor) and Verity Bowman(news reporter) ). appear frequently to offer updates.