“Dutch and German Howitzers Fully Deployed in Ukraine Combat”

The Netherlands and Germany supplied eighteen howitzers to Ukraine, which are now fully deployed in combat. The crew was trained in Germany and Ukraine and has been active for a month now. The 43rd brigade at the front in the south is happy with the new weapons, although the soldiers do complain about the vulnerable systems that get stuck with a little dirt.

Mart de Kruif, former commander of the Army, thinks that the mind set among the Ukrainians has yet to change. “They are used to Russian equipment, the less advanced old Soviet systems. Simple guns. Everything was to do with a hammer, that’s how you see it. Those advanced systems can’t do that.”

The logistics man of the Ukrainian army has the most hectic job in the world, thinks De Kruif. “The major maintenance is almost impossible to do. User maintenance is also done too little. And then you just have to keep everything running. Knowing that it is actually impossible to do.”

But for Ukraine, the deployment of the vehicle now counts. “If you use it intensively, maintenance comes last. What do you do if you have to choose between maintenance and shooting? Then as a soldier on the battlefield you always choose shooting.”

A vulnerable armored vehicle that gets stuck with a little dirt?

De Kruif compares the maintenance to a car in the Netherlands that has to be serviced every 20,000 kilometres. “In Ukraine, some vehicles don’t get a turn, or only after 80,000 kilometers. The chance that things go wrong and the howitzer is no longer accurate, then increases. But there are howitzers that have already fired 10,000 rounds without significant problems. That is incredibly handsome,” says De Kruif. “We never dared to dream that. In the Netherlands we clean those things twice a day.”

With the howitzers, the heaviest artillery of the Dutch army, the Ukrainian army has more firepower and can support more different ground troops at the same time. Because the howitzer is armored, it is also well protected.

The Ukrainian army now seems to be making gains in Bachmoet and has broken through in no less than two places. “We have withdrawn to places where we can better defend ourselves,” the Russian Ministry of Defense responded today. But there is no question of an offensive yet, says De Kruif. “It is still too early to indicate that, to to speak an offensive. But it is very remarkable. Nobody expected this.”

Several sources would indicate that the situation is about to change, says De Kruif. “An encirclement by the Russians is suddenly no longer an option. Where we were previously afraid that the entire city would fall into Russian hands, the initiative now seems to have changed.”

In the meantime, the United Kingdom has also promised Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which can reach far behind the front lines. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had been asking for this for a long time, but the West did not want to supply Ukraine with weapons that could hit Moscow. “I expect that there will be a restriction on the use of those missiles: that they may not be used on Russian territory.”