German, American and French tanks are supporting a regime that openly glorifies its Nazi collaborators. They say history never repeats exactly. It certainly rhymes though.
German tanks rolling into Ukraine to fight Russian troops would have seemed an unbelievable scenario given the dreadful history of World War Two. Yet that scenario is where the NATO proxy war against Moscow is headed. The development has the disturbing echo of Operation Barbarossa when the Nazi Wehrmacht launched its offensive on the Soviet Union in 1941.
Instead of Panzer Tiger tanks, we will see German Marder “fighting vehicles” trundling across Ukraine. These weapons are called “light tanks” but the bigger push is for Leopard 2 main battle tanks to be supplied to Ukrainian NeoNazi forces against Russian lines.
Just two days before the Orthodox Christmas on January 7, U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a deal in which they would supply Bradley and Marder armored infantry carriers to Ukraine, as well as another battery of U.S.-made Patriot missiles.
That announcement followed French President Emmanuel Macron declaring that France was going to supply AMX-10 RC light tanks to Ukraine. Macron’s tone was notably bellicose, saying that France would back the Kiev regime until victory is achieved.
Scholz and Macron are showing themselves to be completely unreliable and politically weak. Previously, the French leader has suggested his willingness for finding a diplomatic resolution to the conflict in Ukraine with Russia. He had incurred the wrath of Washington, as well as the anti-Russian NATO members Poland and the Baltic states for being “too soft” and undermining transatlantic unity.
Yet here we have Macron now making a dubious debut of France becoming the first Western state to supply tanks to Ukraine in the war against Russia. That decision marks a serious threshold of involvement by the NATO bloc in the war.
The fact that the French move was virtually coupled with the U.S. and German commitment to supply light tanks also points to coordinated action by the NATO alliance.
Germany’s Scholz and Macron, like Biden, have broken one promise after another to not escalate the supply of weapons and war in Ukraine. Moscow has repeatedly warned the collective West to desist from arming the Kiev regime.
All of them have previously declared that there would be no tanks supplied to Ukraine as that would be a reckless escalation risking World War Three. Despite such vows of restraint, Washington, Berlin, and Paris have all intensified the supply of increasingly more offensive weaponry.
Biden’s move to send Patriot missiles at the end of last year follows the earlier supply of long-range HIMARS rockets. The supply of tanks was previously verboten, but now that threshold has been similarly breached.
At that rate, it’s only a matter of time before the same NATO powers announce the despatch of main battle tanks. The Kiev regime and its Polish and Baltic allies are demanding Washington and Berlin send in Abrams and Leopards. Both Biden and Scholz are saying that will not happen. But past form suggests there is a cynical and deliberate stealth approach going on where actions blatantly contradict rhetoric.
Tanks are evidently part of an offensive force. They would also require trained crews to operate them. That indicates the NATO powers are providing personnel, maintenance crews and other logistics to deploy these sophisticated machines. The coordination between Washington, Berlin and Paris also signals that NATO is deploying in a systematic and interoperable manner. Thus, the proxy war is going from a piecemeal approach of individual NATO members furnishing the Kiev regime on a bilateral basis to a whole new level of organizational participation.
“The United States and Germany joined France on Thursday [January 5] in saying they will send armored combat vehicles to Ukraine, expanding their assistance with new weapons systems that Kyiv [sic] has said it needs to help its forces recapture territory locked behind Russian lines,” reported the Washington Post.
Western media are spinning the illusion of the Ukrainian regime winning a war against Russia when the reality is Ukrainians are being slaughtered by superior Russian forces. Moscow is not going to relinquish the Crimea and Donbass to NeoNazi death squads equipped with NATO weapons.
The Kiev regime is fighting a losing battle and the NATO powers are willing to fight to the last Ukrainian. Washington and its minions are fueling a futile war and figuratively throwing good money after bad by now supplying tanks to the fray. (It’s good money all the way for the Western merchants of death.)
Instead of seeking a diplomatic way back from the abyss, the NATO powers are too bamboozled by their own propaganda, political venality, and the addiction of their capitalist economies to the military-industrial dealers.
The last time German tanks rolled into battle in Europe they were roundly defeated by Soviet forces. Back then, the Americans were also fighting against the Nazis, albeit only to cynically collude with the remnants of the Third Reich in the next Cold War.
This time around, German, American and French tanks are on the same side supporting a regime that openly glorifies its Nazi collaborators. They say history never repeats exactly. It certainly rhymes though.
Tanks for the memories, indeed!
Finian Cunningham
Former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages