The United States and Germany have announced they will send modern Western battle tanks to Ukraine, capping months of tense diplomatic debates and marking a political win for Kyiv as it readies for spring offensives against invading Russian forces.
Yet the deliveries also pose new logistical headaches for the Ukrainian military and its Western backers, as Ukraine prepares to receive a hodgepodge of varied NATO hand-me-downs that all have different training, spare parts, and maintenance demands—and even require different types of fuel. If British-, German-, or American-made tanks look roughly the same to the untrained eye, then they’re a world apart when it comes to the materials and training needed to deploy them to the battlefield.
