Unlike an APC-a kind of infantry battle taxi that can’t do much else-the squad aboard an IFV does not have to dismount the vehicle to fight it can engage the enemy with the IFV’s main cannon, anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs), and machine guns. Lighter in terms of armament and armor than a tank, they are nonetheless designed to advance with tanks in battle, protecting their heavier cousins from enemy infantry and armor. Although the United States, Sweden, and Germany have each pledged Western IFVs to Ukraine, their actual delivery has yet to be confirmed.įirst developed in the late 1950s in West Germany and the Soviet Union, IFVs are a hybrid between armored personnel carriers (APCs) and tanks. Without IFVs, there can be no rapid and successful Ukrainian offensive this spring-regardless of how many Western tanks arrive. Without the main battle tank and IFV operating together, the choreography of the swift and effective combined arms attack would collapse. The most important of these other weapons-the one Ukrainians on the front lines have been clamoring for-is the armored IFV. That’s because success in ground combat doesn’t depend on tanks alone but rather on how well tanks can be integrated with other platforms to conduct combined arms operations. “We need everything, but IFVs are probably the most urgent need we have,” an officer in a Ukrainian mechanized brigade messaged me last week. Not the tank, but it’s less glamorous cousin-the infantry fighting vehicle (IFV)-was at the top of its weapons wish list.
Listen to Ukrainian military officers, like I was able to do during a research trip to Kyiv and the Donbas this month, and a different picture emerges. Germany’s much-delayed decision to deliver Leopard 2 tanks (and allow other countries to deliver the German-made weapon), along with a British decision to send Challenger 2s, was hailed by many observers as a potential game-changer that would enable Ukraine to conduct offensive operations this spring. The last few months saw a contentious debate among Kyiv’s Western partners about whether to supply Western-made main battle tanks to Ukraine to help it beat back the Russian invasion.
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