The deployment of Leopard tanks trundling towards Russia is a visceral sign of antecedent and of who stands on the right side of history.
German-made tanks, the Panzer Leopard 2, are to be deployed in Ukraine in a war that is increasingly becoming an open confrontation between the U.S.-led NATO alliance and Russia.
Germany’s Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck has given approval for the move following the announcement on Wednesday by Polish President Andrzej Duda that a “company” of Leopards was being supplied from Poland to Ukraine.
There are a reported 2,000 German-made Leopards in service across 13 European countries.
Officially, Berlin has to give its approval for countries to re-export the tank, which is seen as one of the world’s best in its class of main battlefield armored vehicles. That approval was swiftly forthcoming in Habeck’s affirmative response.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is now under intense pressure to authorize the additional supply of Leopards directly from Germany to Ukraine.
For months, Scholz has been refusing to provide the heavy armor out of concern not to provoke Moscow which would perceive it as a definitive escalation.
Figures within the Berlin government, especially Habeck’s Green Party, have been cajoling the chancellor to increase the supply of weapons.
It is a foregone conclusion that Scholz will cave in and give the green light, as he has done on several previous occasions concerning prohibitions on other categories of weaponry.
What is abundantly clear is that the United States and its NATO allies are coordinating a larger-scale involvement in the war in Ukraine against Russia. They are marching in lockstep.
Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden announced an agreement with Germany to supply “light tanks” in the form of Bradley and Marder fighting vehicles.
That move was coupled with an unprecedented decision by France to send AMX-10 RC light tanks to Ukraine. This week, Britain upped the ante by trumpeting that it was ready to supply Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine.
Polish President Duda was in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Wednesday accompanied by Lithuanian counterpart Gitanas Nauseda and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky.
The day before, on Tuesday, the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock (another warmongering Green member), made a surprise visit to Ukraine’s eastern city of Kharkiv where she hinted that Leopard tanks would be forthcoming.
Speaking alongside Germany’s top diplomat, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said cryptically: “I have no doubt Germany will send Leopard tanks to Ukraine… The German government somewhere deep down understands that the decision will be made and the tanks will be transferred to Ukraine.”
The implied fait accompli echoed the words of Joe Biden who warned just before the eruption of conflict in Ukraine in February last year that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia would never become operational regardless of Berlin’s position.
In Lviv, the Polish leader also spoke about the deployment of Leopard tanks as part of an “international coalition” for sending such weaponry.
“A company of Leopard tanks will be handed over as part of a coalition that is being built because, as you know, a large number of formal requirements, agreements, and so on must be met, but primarily we want this to be an international coalition,” said Duda.
What that means is the German-made tanks are going to be sent to Ukraine as part of a much larger, coordinated NATO effort. There is an air of inevitability that the Leopards will be joined by U.S.-made M1 Abrams as well as British Challengers.
The narrative that is being propounded is that the heavy weapons must be ramped up to Ukraine in order to prevent an alleged Russian offensive from taking the capital Kiev and also to consolidate supposed gains made by Ukrainian military.
This narrative is obviously contradictory and belies the Western disinformation peddled by its news media and governments which swivels between imminent defeat or imminent victory for the Kiev regime.
The significant military victory by Russian forces this week in taking control of Soledar, the salt mining town in Donbass, is being cited by NATO figures as evidence that heavier weapons and tanks must be urgently supplied to Ukraine.
What is astounding is the dearth of public debate in the Western states about the relentless supply of weaponry to Ukraine. Hundreds of billions of dollars and euros are given away to a corrupt cabal in Kiev without the slightest oversight.
Despite unprecedented economic and social hardships for their general populations, the ruling elites of Western states are pumping more and more weaponry into a conflict that has got nothing to do with alleged “freedom and democracy” in Ukraine.
Western nations are being dragged deeper into a war against Russia with no public knowledge let alone democratic consent about the real reasons for the war.
Those reasons are to do with promoting U.S.-led Western imperialist interests, which are profoundly at odds with those of ordinary citizens.
The move to supply main battle tanks by NATO powers is typical of the stealth that has driven the build-up to this war.
Typically, the decision has been made in secret and everything else is all about delivering on the decision. Shameless lies about “defending democracy and freedom” are spouted, even though the regime being supported in Kiev by Western taxpayers’ money is one infested with NeoNazis.
Nations are being swept towards an all-out war between the U.S./NATO and Russia by elite rulers in hock to corporate interests and unaccountable deep-state planners.
Despicably and criminally, there is no call among Western governments or media for diplomatic initiatives to end the conflict in Ukraine and to address the deeper geopolitical causes.
All elite discourse is about the imperative of “defeating Russia” and “regime change” in Moscow as if it is a doctrinal ordinance.
The conflict in Ukraine was sown in 2014 by the U.S. and NATO-backed coup against democracy and the subsequent weaponizing of a NeoNazi regime.
But the seeds for that were borne from a more evil fruit that goes all the way back to the Second World War and Nazi Germany’s failed conquest of the Soviet Union.
The imperial designs of the Third Reich and its expansionist “lebensraum” have been inherited by the U.S.-led NATO axis. The deployment of Leopard tanks – in place of Panzer Tigers – trundling towards Russia is a visceral sign of antecedent and of who stands on the right side of history.
By SCF Editorial
Published by SCF
Republished by The 21st Century
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of 21cir.com.