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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. With better tanks than the Russians as well, the Ukrainian advantage will widen.

But the current rate of exchange, with old Soviet tanks on both sides, is two or three-to-one in favour of Ukraine, mainly because its crews are better trained and more committed.

There’s no such thing as an invulnerable tank. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the new tanks “will burn like all the rest.” Now that the Western tanks actually are coming – American M1 Abrams, British Challengers, Leopard 2s from Germany and up to half a dozen other NATO members, probably Leclercs from France – the Russians are playing it cool. A couple of weeks ago, Moscow was hinting this could be the step that “forced” them to escalate to nuclear war, but that seems to have been just the usual bluff. The Russians certainly are not panicking at the prospect of Leopard tanks with Ukrainian crews showing up to confront them in eastern Ukraine in a month or two (or three). Now, it’s a minute and a half, the closest it has ever been. It dropped to 17 minutes to midnight after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

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Image of small country image of military tanks