The NPR Politics Podcast - United States And Its Allies To Provide Tanks To Ukraine

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

The move, announced by President Biden in a speech from the Roosevelt Room of the White House, is the latest in a continued escalation of military equipment headed to the country from the U.S. and its allies. It comes as somewhat of a surprise: as recently as last week, top Pentagon officials were insisting that they would not send tanks.This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, White House correspondent Asma Khalid, and Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman.This episode was produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It was edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Devin Speak.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Tassia and our three-year-old son, Aziz. He's currently napping as we head to the Senegal airport near Dakar. We are on our way back to Atlanta from a two-week trip to both Senegal and Gambia. This NPR Politics podcast was recorded at... It's 1253 Eastern on Wednesday, January 25th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but our family will still be dreaming of our next vacation. Oh, that sounds so nice. All right. Enjoy the show.

That sounds like an amazing vacation. I will say I'm a little envious, though, of hearing that the three-year-old is napping because it's a bit of a struggle to get a three-year-old to nap when you want them to. RIP naps. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House. And I'm Asma Khalid. I also cover the White House. We've got Tom Bowman joining us today. He covers the Pentagon for NPR. Hey, Tom. Good to be with you.

You are with us, Tom, because today, from the White House, President Biden announced from the Roosevelt Room a notable escalation in U.S. military aid to Ukraine. Today, I'm announcing that the United States will be sending 31 Abram tanks to Ukraine, the equivalent of one Ukrainian battalion. Secretary Austin has recommended this step because it will enhance the Ukraine's capacity to defend its territory and achieve its strategic objectives. Quite a birthday present for Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky. What else did Biden say today? Yes. And to that point, Scott, I mean, the president actually did point out that today is indeed Zelensky's birthday. You know, the main thing that he announced is this decision to send Abrams tanks. It's a bit of a policy reversal, frankly. I mean, officials had

previously suggested that these tanks would be too complex to maintain. It would require training, et cetera. And, you know, this is the big announcement that we had been, I would say, hearing about and expecting. But to hear President Biden announce this today was, I would say, rather significant. I think Tom will have some thoughts on sort of the politics of this all. But it comes, you know, as President Biden points out, in consultation with European allies and specifically in conjunction with Germany's decision today to send tanks of its own. So, Tom, there's a lot to talk about here. Let's save the politics of why this decision was made for next. But first of all, how big of a difference does 31 tanks make? Is it as big of a difference as Biden is framing it as here? Well, the important thing is they're sending them to Ukraine. The thing is, when will they get there? Months at least, and maybe up to a year

if General Dynamics has to build them from scratch. So it's a delayed birthday present, let's say. And 31 tanks, again, they're not going to be ready for the spring offensive, which is expected. That's the bottom line. The real question is how many German Leopard tanks can get there for that spring offensive, which is expected to go after Russian forces in the east in the Donbass area, or cut the land bridge between Russia and Crimea in the south. That is key. We don't know. Right now, Germany is saying we're going to send 14 or so. The British are going to send a dozen or so Challenger tanks. The Ukrainians say we need 300 tanks. So the question is, how many tanks can they get? What are they going to do with them? And the other thing is, again, these Abrams tanks unless other countries, particularly the United States, did so as well. So is this symbolic cover for Germany and the more immediate tanks? Oh, it's absolutely symbolic cover for Germany. I'm glad I'm on the politics podcast because this

is more politics than a military issue. Again, Colin Kyle, the number three Pentagon official, told us just last week, listen, Abrams are off the table. They're hard to maintain, as Osma mentioned. It takes a lot of training and so forth. It's not going to happen. Here we are less than a week later making the announcement. Germany, again, would not send their Leopard tanks to Ukraine until they said, we want the Americans to send their Abrams. Now the White House has quickly done that. Again, more politics than military. And why was Germany so resistant? What was the dynamic there? Well, I think part of it is due to history. Germany crept in during World War II. They, of course, attacked Russia. They didn't want to antagonize Russia. So I think that a big part of it too. And also, you know,

Germany now is more a pacifist nation than it was just decades ago. Everyone's not on board with supporting the war and also sending tanks into Ukraine. It's a deep political issue. And beyond Germany, we should point out, I mean, the administration is suggesting that other European allies will also send similar tanks. A senior administration official did tell reporters in a conference call this morning that you're going to see, quote, hundreds of armored vehicles and tanks arriving in Ukraine. Of course, to Tom's point, when do they actually arrive and when are they going to be there, you know, kind of operationally on the ground working in Ukraine? And it's important to note there are roughly 2,000 of these Leopard tanks all around Europe. So they could free up

300, potentially. And the armored vehicles, like the Bradley fighting vehicle the U.S. has and the Stryker armored vehicle, I've ridden in those in combat operations. They're very effective. They do not have the punch of an Abrams tank. I've seen an Abrams, not a fire shot in anger, but in training. it is formidable. So another step back question, you know, the early days of this war from the U.S. side was defined by the Biden administration trying to be pretty cautious, saying we want to help Ukraine, but we don't want this to escalate into a Russia against NATO war. I was reporting there last April. And at that point, you know, so many Ukrainians I talked to were angry at the U.S.

saying, you know, the U.S. is doing so much, but why not missiles? Why not tanks? Why not so many things? There are so many things that were part of the frustration from Ukraine then that the U.S. has since sent. And as we can all tell, because we're listening to this podcast, we are not in a nuclear war with Russia. So what has gone on with the initial concerns about Russian retaliation and red lines? Why has that changed over the past year? I think the initial concerns about Russian retaliation and red lines? Why has that changed over the past year? I think the brutality, the Russian invasion, hitting civilian infrastructure, killing an estimated 50,000 or more civilians. I think that showed Europe.

It showed the United States. We have to help Ukraine. This is a brutal, brutal war and only getting worse. But you're right. Initially, they were like, we're not going to send anything to them. No javelin, you know, shoulder fired missiles. Okay, we'll send javelins, but we're not going to send artillery. Okay, we're going to send artillery. And I had people in the Pentagon tell me, you know, the Patriot system and the HIMARS system, you know, there's no way we're going to send those, Tom, because, you know,

it would antagonize Russia. It's a lot of training. And they sent the Patriot air defense missiles and they sent the HIMARS system, which is a, you know, it can pinpoint and attack Russian command and control and logistics and so forth. Very effective, very effective. But they've all said we're not going to send those. And then they turn around a week later and say, we're going to send them. And unlike these tanks, at least immediately, from what you're saying, those HIMARS systems have made an enormous difference. Huge difference. I mean, the other point I think, though, is that really we are hitting the one-year mark of Russia's

invasion of Ukraine. This conflict has persisted. And you look at other tools the administration and its allies have used, such as sanctions, They have not fully deterred Russia, right? I mean, so they're sort of left with what other sort of non-military tools do they have? You know, they talk about export controls. They talk about sanctions. And you've seen the invasion continue on and linger on for quite a while. And the White House will point out, and I think it's valid, that NATO has remained relatively unified throughout this entire period.

You've even seen countries like Finland and Sweden want to enter NATO. And so I don't think there's a splintering off of Europe that perhaps maybe was initially expected. No, I think people are overstating that, that Europe is starting to come apart a little bit with the Germans and so forth. Like a week ago, people were saying that now the Germans are going to send the tanks. And again, the big issue was what does Ukraine do with the tanks? Now, we expect some sort of a spring offensive. We expect them to push through the Russian defenses, particularly in the east. And the Russians are having a hard time.

I mean, they're sending a lot more troops, thousands of more troops in, but a lot of their armor has been destroyed. So we'll see what they can achieve. The big thing for the Ukrainians is can you push the Russians back to the February 23rd borders when this whole thing started? That's their goal. Can they achieve it? We'll see. We're going to take a quick break and talk a lot more about this in a moment. We are back. And, Tom, it's been a while since we talked about this war on the podcast.

I think a lot of the last major headlines that resonated with a lot of people was the big fall offensive where Ukraine surprised Russia and gained back a lot of ground. And then the fact that Russia was just decimating Ukrainian energy and electricity infrastructure over the course of a long, cold winter. What's the big picture state of things right now heading into this one-year anniversary? Well, Russia is still hammering Ukraine with a lot of missiles and artillery shells, hitting infrastructure, hitting gas and so forth. So that's continuing to go on. And again, what you're going to see in the coming weeks or months is the Russians trying to push into the east, trying to move west from the Donbass area, try to gain more ground. And you're going to see Ukraine try to either push them back in

that Donbass area or cut off this land bridge between Russia and Crimea, basically, you know, cutting off all the Russian forces there. The only avenue then would be the bridge between Russia and Ukraine, which already has been hit by Ukrainian forces. That's something to watch in the future. It's also important. We've been talking about tanks. It's really important to blunt these Russian missiles hitting the civilian infrastructure to get more air defenses in. That's very important.

That's something that's been lost. More Patriot systems, the best in the world, are heading into Ukraine that will help in that. And Asma, I mean, even with all of the other major, major storylines that have dominated the Biden administration, this war and the way that Biden has tried to get NATO on the same page and stay on the same page has really become like one of the defining stories of the Biden administration. Is there a sense of what the president's goals are for this coming year, especially given the fact that Congress is a bit different now? Senate Republican Mitch McConnell seemed very happy to continue funding Ukraine. But there's there's at least some some out loud skepticism of continuing to spend that amount of money from House Republicans. I mean, what we've heard from the White House and from the president himself is a desire to continue

unified bipartisan support for Ukraine. You know, we saw just before the Christmas holiday, President Zelensky himself came to Washington, D.C. to speak with members of Congress. And I mean, that was clearly a desire to ensure that this bipartisan level of support does continue for Ukraine. But, you know, one question I've had, and Tom, maybe you have some insights into this, is every time we hear the president speak about, you know, broadly continued support for Ukraine, there's a sense that the United States will be with Ukraine no matter how long this conflict continues. And we're now looking at, you know, about one year in to the Russian invasion. And so I am left wondering, you know, well, how long does that mean? And is, into the summer, into the fall of this year. We have no sense of when and how this thing

is going to end. Only one person really knows, and that's Vladimir Putin. What are your biggest questions right now? Again, how many tanks can they get? Where are they going to use these tanks? And what can they achieve? Tom, thanks for your reporting. Thanks for joining us. You're welcome. All right. We will be back in your feed soon. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House. And I'm Asma Khalid. I also cover the White House. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.