Germany sending tanks to Ukraine... Does this mean the war will spread & escalate?

[Explodingatomickittens]

Feeling anxious. The poor Ukrainians, hard to believe that this war is going on nearly a year.. Does Germany sending tanks along with The U. S & other countries mean the war will spill over into the rest of Europe? How will Putin retaliate?

We've been sending weapons since the start, I don't see this is really any different

I'm not sure but Germany were very hesitant to send the tanks..

Putin knows full well that if he starts a war with NATO he will come off worse.

The rest of Europe has been sending lots of stuff since the start. Why would it spill over to other countries? Russia can't even win from Ukraine at the moment, how on earth are they going to win if they start an extra war somewhere else?

I dunno unless they get support from China, Middle East & India😕

Putin, or more likely his lackeys, will stamp their feet, froth about going nuclear, then do the square root of fuck all, just like they always do.

It won't spread any further. It might get a bit wilder in Ukraine for a while but hopefully this will make the war sharper, but shorter.

Really hope this is the case!

I hope it will escalate. That’s exactly the point of sending them. At the moment, it’s a horrific, grinding stalemate of death, destruction and hardship, all without much hope or progress either way. The tanks are hopefully to give the Ukrainians the tools and ability to break that deadlock, and make genuine and definite progress in kicking the Russians out of their territory, and allowing both their civilians and military to be safe and start to rebuild their lives.

But it’s highly unlikely it will spill out of Ukraine/Belarus. The Russians, despise a huge effort so far, haven’t made much progress just against the Ukraine armed forces, with some fairly limited help from the west. They’d have no chance against a full on, mobilised Nato conventional response and they know it. Most of the political rhetoric and news/social media articles (in Russia they are the same thing) are for domestic consumption- due to its history Russian leadership has always feared revolution from within. And whilst you can’t and shouldn’t ever fully discount the nuclear threat, that’s still only a big lose option for them (and Nato) too, so again, highly unlikely.

They almost certainly won't.

China is probably sitting back waiting to see if a trashed Russian military gives them opportunities for a land grab in the Far east.

Middle east? who are you thinking of?

India is already pee'd off at the lack of Russian support it is getting for it's military kit....

So you are in favour of Russia taking over Ukraine then? You think if we allow then to fail it will stop putin there? More like if we don't send weapons it will escalate to the rest of the old ussr

No not in favour at all. However I don't want ww3 obviously. The doomsday clock freaked me out last night!

There won't be any doomsday. Putin will do what he usually does and make lots of noise - if he's not lying moribund in his bed of course 😀

That bloody Doomsday clock!

it’s only ever been at ten to or beyond.

I think for those of us who have followed the war closely for months this feels like an inevitable next steps and frankly the right thing to do. Its a slight escalation (potentially) but the West are already sending significant weaponry/defensive equipment such as HIMARS and Patriot systems. We're also already sending vehicles only slightly different to tanks (armoured vehicles).

In terms of the risk of "Doomsday" the Institute for the Study of War outlined in a recent update that they consider the likelyhood of Russia using nuclear missiles against Ukraine (so tactical nuclear warheads) as unlikely and the likelyhood of them using nuclear weapons against another state (namely a NATO member) as a vanishingly small chance.

Those Countries do not want a world war.

And on the Doomsday clock I think its actually massively irresponsible, and plays into Russian propaganda, particularly with the timing. The Kremlin has managed to link it to the decision to supply tanks.

I would imagine the usual Russian pundits will be threatening us all with nuclear tsunamis and hellfire but frankly now I just roll my eyes at their frothing.

He's been threatening nuclear war for a year. He won't do a thing. He's a classic bully, picking on a weaker kid but won't do anything to a stronger one.

The Russian army can't even hold its own against Ukrainian soldiers who were just plumbers, farmers, insurance salesmen less than a year ago. They don't stand a chance against a full on NATO assault and Putin knows this.

If you want to prevent WW3 then stopping Russia at Ukraine is the most important precaution. If they do run over the whole of Ukraine then they will look into attacking another country. As it stands now they can't win as long as we keep helping Ukraine.

I'm in continental Europe and not scared for my country at all.

Escalate, yes, although likely not immediately (there's apparently quite a bit of prep work to get the Leopards, and even more so the Abrams tanks from the USA, up and running smoothly). Spread, no - or at least not to NATO/the EU; I agree with DomesticShortHair that Belarus is already in the middle of it and I always worry about Moldova.

Germany is cautious; they have been throughout this crisis - even before Feb 2022, back to the Russian interventions in Donbas and Crimea. Scholz is newish as Chancellor and inherited a very fragmented situation politically (even Merkel - much more established and connected - was having trouble forming and running a stable coalition government). Germany is an anomoly because of the post-Second World War history and reunification. Among the politicians and the people you've got a segment that are more in the headspace of Poland and the Baltics: very critical (even afraid) of Russia based on experience, but also in different ways cautious about the West/NATO. And then you have the legacy of West Germany: rich and central, but demilitarised for decades, pre-Kosovo, with a complicated recent past in terms of military involvement, and still closely tied militarily to the USA.

Germany is a target: in a ground/naval war, the Baltics, Poland, Finland, Hungary, Romania, Moldova etc. are on the front lines. If something switches to nuclear, though, Germany likely becomes the main target. Putin is probably not crazy and probably won't do anything crazy. But nobody is really sure, and no German politician wants to be the one who took a risk that fucked up everything - even if, realistically, they had no choice.

I'd expect, soon if not already, there will be some narrative from Russia and/or supporters of Russia's war complaining that Germany's actions mean "NATO boots on the ground" in Ukraine to service the new tanks and train Ukrainian forces, and that this is a game changer. It's not. And even if it were: Russian military assets were openly operating as "mercenaries" in Donbas since 2014 if not earlier. NATO isn't doing anything Russia didn't already do, but look out for the disinformation.

Agree with this

Hopefully if he is in bed, it's nothing painless