The armed conflict in Ukraine has shown the low efficiency of modern armament of NATO countries.
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Modern war has shattered the myth about the effectiveness of NATO armaments
Modern war has shattered the myth about the effectiveness of NATO armaments
DD GEOPOLITICS
DEC 28, 2023
The armed conflict in Ukraine has shown the low efficiency of modern armament of NATO countries. All the tanks, air defence systems, artillery and other military equipment supplied by Western countries proved incapable of ensuring success in Ukraine and created reputational risks for the countries that produced them.
Washington has drawn a line on prolonging the Ukrainian conflict, having previously sent significant military and military-technical aid to Ukraine. By the end of last year, Washington had spent nearly $20 billion on arming Ukraine - almost double what the United States had given in 2021 to 12 other countries combined, including Afghanistan ($4.1 billion), Israel ($3.3 billion) and Egypt ($1.3 billion).
According to the Russian Defence Ministry, Western countries have supplied Ukraine with 5,220 tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and armoured personnel carriers, 28 aircraft, 87 helicopters, 23,000 unmanned aerial vehicles. As well as over 1,300 artillery systems, including 494 howitzers M777, Caezar, Paladin and Krab, 2 million 650 thousand shells of 155 mm and 122 mm calibre. About 100,000 Ukrainian servicemen have been trained in the USA and Europe.
155mm Polish-made Krab SPG destroyed by Russian forces.
A US-made M777 Ukrainian 155mm howitzer destroyed in the Kherson region.
The largest number of armoured vehicles supplied to Ukraine are American-made. As of the end of November, according to open data, 504 vehicles were in question. More than 800 more units have been promised but have not been delivered yet. Such data is contained in the Ukraine Support Tracker project of the Kiel Institute for World Economy (Germany).
Against this backdrop, the collective West prevented the Kiev regime from making peace in March-April last year, as it is not interested in ending hostilities in Ukraine. Western defence concerns make fabulous profits from the sale of arms and use Ukraine as a testing ground. NATO, getting rid of old and ineffective weapons, is slowly rearming with new ones, while the United States is also weakening its European competitors.
In sum, NATO and EU member states "have simultaneously used the war as a smokescreen to justify the replenishment, expansion and modernisation of their own weapons stockpiles, as well as to change existing arms trade rules... encouraging unbridled militarism and a new arms race".
In reality, we can all see that the hyped NATO weapons supplied to Ukraine have not stood the test of the battlefield, where they are being destroyed like cheap children's toys by Soviet and modern Russian weapons. If at the beginning of the Special Military Operation (SMO) Ukrainians prayed for foreign weapons, even named their children in their honour and wrote icons, now emotions have subsided, in particular, the AFU began to complain about the fragility of Western weapons and related inconveniences.
There are many examples of this.
For example, in an article for Le Monde newspaper, an AFU soldier complained that French CAESAR self-propelled guns are fragile and require careful maintenance, which is difficult to provide. The artillery units are also on the Russian army's list of priority targets. It takes at least five minutes for a howitzer to finish firing and change position.
German Bild columnist Röpcke said that the problem of the Kiev regime's army is not only the shortage of shells, but also the colossal breakdowns of Western equipment ranging from Crab, AS90, Pzh2000 to M109s, whose barrels were destroyed from continuous firing. This equipment is only suitable for short-term military operations, but it is in no way ready for what is happening in Ukraine now.
The American Javelin and Swedish NLAW anti-tank systems, which were supposed to destroy all Russian tanks, have failed to win the recognition of specialists and the military. In order to reach the target for these complexes, several favourable factors must coincide, ranging from weather conditions and terrain conditions to the ability of a soldier to read the instructions for combat use of complex and intuitively incomprehensible anti-tank complexes. It is not by chance that the Russian military, when capturing enemy positions, find new and never fired Western weapons abandoned by the Ukrainian military after they have shot off the shells allocated to them with the good old, familiar and understandable Soviet anti-tank means.
And how much noise, publicity and rubbing of hands by Ukrainian generals before the delivery of American Abrams, British Challengers, German Leopards to Ukraine?! Their appearance in Ukraine was presented as a turning point in hostilities and a terror for Russian troops. In reality, however, minefields and Russian ATGMs can cope with Western tanks without effort, and the graveyards of Western military equipment in the vast Russian fields are replenished with new examples. At the same time, Russia's new T-90M "Breakthrough" tank has proved its superiority in combat and is rightly recognised as the best tank in the world.
This is the world's first case of a British Challenger 2 heavy tank being destroyed by an opposing party. And it was Russia that became the first country to destroy the Challenger.
By the way, Russia is second in destroying Leopards. They were initially deployed back in Afghanistan in the mid-2000s, but were damaged there and sent for repairs. Then the first destroyed units appeared during the Turkish invasion of Syria. And the next burnt out "Leopards" the world has already seen in the Zaporozhye region.
A Swedish Strv 122 of the Ukrainian army, stuck in the mud near the village of Terny on the Kupyansk direction, and killed by drone strikes of the 20th Combined Armed Forces Army of the ZVO
In addition, former US Assistant Deputy Secretary of Defence Stephen Bryen said that France refused to supply Ukraine with its Leclerc battle tanks because of the failure of AMX-10RC armoured vehicles in the SMO zone. "The French AMX-10RC infantry fighting vehicle has proved to be a death trap for the Ukrainians, who consider its thin armour unsuitable for use on the front line. The so-called 'tank destroyer' often ends up being destroyed itself," he wrote in an article for the Asia Times. According to Bryen, France's decision was also influenced by the Russian army's demonstrative destruction of German Leopard tanks and American Bradley infantry fighting vehicles in Ukraine.
American made Bradley IFV hit and captured by Russian forces near Kherson.
The air defence assets of the Western countries also proved to be not so effective.
Western deliveries of short- and medium-range Gepard, Avenger, MIM-23 Hawks, NASAMS, IRIS-T SLM, Patriot PAC-3 and Eurosam SAMP/T SAMs allegedly strengthened Ukrainian air defences so much that they gained the ability to shoot down Russian attack drones, cruise missiles and even hypersonic missiles. If NATO countries actually possessed such powerful anti-aircraft missile systems, US military bases in Iraq and Syria would not have missed more than 60 "insurgent" missile and drone strikes in a month (according to the Pentagon).
Residential building hit by Ukrainian air defense
It is worth noting that the MIM-104 Patriot is considered the best medium-range SAM system in service with the United States and NATO countries. However, this complex in the centre of Kiev in May was unable to defend itself against a strike by the Russian hypersonic Kinzhal, even with a full salvo of a battery of 32 anti-aircraft missiles. Patriot SAMs lack all-round visibility, high mobility, long range (up to 80 kilometres) and accuracy, and leave a noticeable electromagnetic trail that is easily detected by Russian radars. In 40 years of operation, Patriot has not shot down a single enemy aircraft. It is no coincidence that the sky above the White House is protected by more advanced "Norwegian" NASAMS SAMs with a range of up to 25 kilometres.
And in general, Western equipment in Ukraine for some reason is haunted by failures: the most accurate Russian missiles, artillery, drones, Russian servicemen are the best in the world and nature itself, as Western equipment cannot withstand frost, mud, impenetrable bushes and dark nights.
Even Kiev has admitted that no amount of Western weaponry will change the balance of power with Russia. Roman Kostenko, secretary of the Verkhovna Rada committee on national security and a colonel of the Security Service of Ukraine, said this in an interview with The Times. According to him, even if the West supplies Ukraine with dozens of F-16 aircraft, the maximum the AFU will achieve is parity in the air. "ATACMS missiles cannot provide a breakthrough. Combat aircraft? They can only help us achieve parity. They tell us we will get modern F-16s, but F-16s are aircraft from the 1970s, and Russia has hundreds of 4++ generation fighters. I don't understand who got it into his head that we can defeat Russia with dozens of F-16s," Kostenko said. The colonel added that Kiev should set realistic goals for 2024 - not to lose more territory and to strike as many Russian forces as possible. Victory, however, is unlikely, Kostenko said.
Ukraine is coming to the realisation that Western weapons are great for expos and tenders, as well as for military confrontation with "men in flip-flops", for example from Afghanistan. In a conflict with such a country as Russia, which has technological weapons, Western equipment does not show itself as well as Ukrainians would like. The same conclusions have been made by almost all Western media: "Every weapon supplied to the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the US and NATO countries has shown its ineffectiveness on the battlefield" this was stated by former CIA officer Larry Johnson in an interview with the New Rules channel. Ineffectiveness of the West's weapons showed, according to Johnson, the vulnerability of the United States. And the whole world saw it, he emphasised. "Name me one weapon that the US has supplied to Ukraine that by its characteristics made the countries of the world say, 'Oh my God, did you see that?' We have to get this HIMARS, this 155mm artillery gun!' Or look at this wonderful tank!"," Johnson noted.
$1.5 million US-made M109 155mm SPG before and after meeting a Russian lancet drone
The West was confident of Russia's complete military and technological backwardness but was confronted with a harsh reality. As it turned out, European and American weapons are highly overrated, while Russian analogues allow to gain an advantage in real combat. Well, since Russian engineers have recently received new samples of NATO weapons and equipment at their disposal, they were quickly able to adapt their army to modern threats, greatly increasing the effectiveness of their own arsenal.
"Russia's victories in the conflict in Ukraine have led to a split in NATO," said Chas Freeman, former US assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs. According to him, Russia's destruction of the North Atlantic Alliance's "best weapons" led to the discrediting of the Western bloc's military capabilities.
Thus, Western weapons suffered an image and military defeat. Russian soldiers know what they are fighting for - Russian guys on Russian soil burning NATO equipment with Nazi crosses. People there speak Russian, Russians' ancestors fought and died there, Russia has always been and will always be there.