The recently unveiled "armored vehicle coalition" was initially proposed by Poland and Germany and supported by the UK, Sweden and Italy and is apparently meant to facilitate the provision of such vehicles to Ukraine
Commenting on this development, retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Earl Rasmussen told Sputnik that this new coalition involves establishing repair facilities, training armored vehicle crews and technicians, and supplying weapons and ammunition.
Pointing out that this is not the first such coalition set up by Ukraine’s Western sponsors, Rasmussen argued that this latest effort is unlikely to affect the situation on the front line in the Ukrainian conflict.
“Maybe it will provide some common training, but that should have already been done,” he mused. “A lot of that may have been done over the last four years as well or the last eight years. But no, this will not impact the movement of the battle, the outcome of the conflict.”
Rasmussen also pointed at the plans previously announced by Western defense contractors, like Rheinmetall, to set up production facilities in Ukraine. He stressed that such ideas are very risky and expensive considering the constant threat of Russian strikes.
“There'll be financial losses associated with that, there'll be human losses associated with that. These initiatives, all of them will have no impact on the outcome,” he lamented. “And unfortunately, many of the politicians just have not grasped that.”
The United States and its European NATO allies funneled billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and military hardware to Ukraine following the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict in February 2022.
While this military assistance did help fan the flames of the conflict and prolong it, it did not provide the regime in Kiev with an edge that would have allowed it to match the Russian forces on the battlefield.