Paris - (AFP) - By finally agreeing to hand over German and American-made heavy tanks to Kiev despite Russian warnings, the Western camp is crossing a new symbolic threshold in its support for Ukraine , which is likely to benefit from the tanks in penetrating the lines of the Russian forces.

After weeks of Kiev's insistence on granting it "Leopard 2" tanks, which are reputed to be among the best in the world, Germany agreed on Wednesday, pledging to send 14 of them to Ukraine, paving the way for similar deliveries from many European countries that own these tanks.

"From the donation of 5,000 heavy helmets to sending the Leopard to Ukraine: in less than a year Germany has abandoned seven decades of pacifism. Maybe with some reluctance, but that makes a point," Bruno Leit, a researcher at the German Marshall Fund of the United States of the United States, commented on Twitter. A major transformation in itself."

Also Wednesday, a senior US official announced that the United States would send 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine.

Before that, London promised to give Kiev dozens of Challenger 2 tanks, while Paris and Washington announced the delivery of armored vehicles for reconnaissance and infantry forces.

This unified front behind Kiev appears to be a new challenge for the Russians, who have bet since the beginning of the conflict on the decline of Western support for Ukraine.

With these new shipments to Kiev, Westerners once again risk being accused by Moscow of "participating in the conflict". But in fact, many taboos have already fallen since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

Ukrainian military analyst Mykola Belikov confirms that "howitzers and rocket launchers that were provided in 2022 were dangerous equipment, if not more dangerous than combat tanks, because artillery is more powerful."

Likewise, Washington recently ended up agreeing to deliver a medium-range Patriot surface-to-air missile system to Kiev after much hesitation for fear of escalation, and it is considered among the best in the West.

On Wednesday, the Russian ambassador to Germany, Sergey Nechaev, denounced Berlin's "very dangerous decision that would take the conflict to a new level of confrontation."

But a European government source said, "Our assessment is that (tanks) today are not tools of escalation, given their likely use by the Ukrainians" only on their territory, not abroad.

In the midst of its response, Moscow may deploy the next generation of its T14 combat tanks on the battlefield for the first time, but the problem is that "only about 20 of them have been manufactured" so far, according to Andras Rach, a researcher at the German Council for International Relations.

Thus, "in the absence of a commensurate military response, we can expect an increased media offensive from Russia, which could also launch a second military mobilization campaign," according to Rach.

However, the expert believes that "the Russians know very well that a few dozen Western tanks will not change the face of the war, and therefore I do not expect an immediate escalation from Moscow."

Since December, Kiev has called for sending about 300 Western-made tanks to launch counterattacks, in light of the relatively stable battle lines for months, and the imminent arrival of spring raises fears of launching a large-scale Russian operation in the Donbass region (east).

Tanks and armor could allow Ukrainian forces to gain an advantage in movement, hoping to penetrate Russian defense lines with artillery support and break the trench warfare taking place in the east of the country.

"Battle tanks have been an integral part of the arms race since World War II. No defensive or offensive operation can be carried out without an arsenal of offensive tanks," says Ukrainian expert Mykola Beliskov.

However, tanks alone will not guarantee an advantage on the battlefield.

The expert stresses that "only when used in coordination with mechanized infantry, artillery, air defense and missile divisions can tanks achieve results."