After Losing 1,000 Tanks, Ukraine Is Rethinking How It Uses Them

By: bitcoin ethereum news|2025/05/14 07:45:04
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A Ukrainian Leopard 2A4 crosses a river in Donetsk Oblast in 2024. Ukrainian defense ministry photo The Ukrainian National Guard’s best brigades are getting some of Ukraine’s best tanks. Last week, Gen. Oleksandr Pivnenko—commander of the roughly 100,000-strong paramilitary force—announced some of his brigades had received German-made Leopard 1A5 and Leopard 2A4 tanks. The four-person tanks “have already proven their effectiveness in combat conditions,” Pivnenko wrote. “They combine high mobility, firepower and reliability, which are critical on the modern battlefield.” The 42-ton Leopard 1A5 packs a 105-millimeter main gun; the 61-ton Leopard 2A4’s gun is bigger at 120 millimeters. Both tanks have four crew, but the heavier Leopard 2A4 offers its crew much more protection. It’s unclear which National Guard units will get the German tanks, but it’s likely the 12 so-called “offensive guard” brigades, each with at least 2,000 troopers, are first in line. The offensive guard brigades are, like all Ukrainian guard brigades, made up of border guards, federal police and other internal security forces. But they’re trained and equipped to the same standards as the Ukrainian army, air assault forces and marine corps. The guard brigades’ armor upgrade does not represent an expansion of the overall Ukrainian armor corps, however. Instead, it’s part of a total rewriting of Ukrainian tank doctrine for the drone era. After losing more than 1,000 tanks, many of them to Russian drones, Ukrainian leaders have accepted that the heavy, powerfully armed fighting vehicles need to operate differently if they’re going to survive on a battlefield where tiny drones are everywhere all the time. Tank crews should operate extremely carefully—hiding most of the time in barns, garages or dugouts and rolling out only occasionally to fire a few shells before scurrying back under cover. It’s a new “era of the cautious tank,” David Kirichenko, an analyst with the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington, D.C., announced in September. Functioning more like cautious artillery and less like the brazen, close-fighting assault vehicles they once were, tanks are losing some of their relevance. Embracing that new truth, the Ukrainian army is reorganizing its tank units. The four active tank brigades, each with up to 100 tanks, are likely to disband. Some of the hundreds of tanks freed up by this reform—including potentially scores of Leopard 1A5s and Leopard 2A4s, out of 240 of the tanks Ukraine is getting from its allies—will cascade to new 30-tank battalions belonging to infantry and mechanized brigades and the new multi-brigade corps that the Ukrainian ground forces are organizing. Ukraine’s tanks are dispersing on the battlefield—spreading out and hiding to avoid detection by drones—and also dispersing within the Ukrainian military’s force structure: playing more of a supporting role than a lead role in a war increasingly shaped by tiny, lethal robots. The end result should be a somewhat smaller overall tank corps with fewer vehicles and fewer crews, but which is better suited for the kind of war Ukraine is waging. Cutting tank units isn’t just a doctrinal imperative, however. It may also help the general staff in Kyiv solve one of its most vexing problems: a deep shortage of front-line infantry. By sending fewer new recruits to tank school, military planners could send more to infantry school. Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/05/13/after-losing-1000-tanks-ukraine-is-rethinking-how-it-uses-the-heavily-armed-vehicles/

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Mixin has launched USTD-margined perpetual contracts, bringing derivative trading into the chat scene.

The privacy-focused crypto wallet Mixin announced today the launch of its U-based perpetual contract (a derivative priced in USDT). Unlike traditional exchanges, Mixin has taken a new approach by "liberating" derivative trading from isolated matching engines and embedding it into the instant messaging environment.


Users can directly open positions within the app with leverage of up to 200x, while sharing positions, discussing strategies, and copy trading within private communities. Trading, social interaction, and asset management are integrated into the same interface.


Simplified Trading Experience: No KYC Required, Opening a Position in Five Steps


Based on its non-custodial architecture, Mixin has eliminated friction from the traditional onboarding process, allowing users to participate in perpetual contract trading without identity verification.


The trading process has been streamlined into five steps:

· Choose the trading asset

· Select long or short

· Input position size and leverage

· Confirm order details

· Confirm and open the position


The interface provides real-time visualization of price, position, and profit and loss (PnL), allowing users to complete trades without switching between multiple modules.


Social-Native Trading: Strategy and Execution Completed in the Same Context


Mixin has directly integrated social features into the derivative trading environment. Users can create private trading communities and interact around real-time positions:

· End-to-end encrypted private groups supporting up to 1024 members

· End-to-end encrypted voice communication

· One-click position sharing

· One-click trade copying


On the execution side, Mixin aggregates liquidity from multiple sources and accesses decentralized protocol and external market liquidity through a unified trading interface.


By combining social interaction with trade execution, Mixin enables users to collaborate, share, and execute trading strategies instantly within the same environment.


Referral Mechanism: Non-institutional users can receive up to 60% fee split


Mixin has also introduced a referral incentive system based on trading behavior:

· Users can join with an invite code

· Up to 60% of trading fees as referral rewards

· Incentive mechanism designed for long-term, sustainable earnings


This model aims to drive user-driven network expansion and organic growth.


Self-Custody Architecture and Built-in Privacy Mechanism


Mixin's derivative transactions are built on top of its existing self-custody wallet infrastructure, with core features including:


· Separation of transaction account and asset storage

· User full control over assets

· Platform does not custody user funds

· Built-in privacy mechanisms to reduce data exposure


The system aims to strike a balance between transaction efficiency, asset security, and privacy protection.


A New Path for On-Chain Derivatives


Against the background of perpetual contracts becoming a mainstream trading tool, Mixin is exploring a different development direction by lowering barriers, enhancing social and privacy attributes.


The platform does not only view transactions as execution actions but positions them as a networked activity: transactions have social attributes, strategies can be shared, and relationships between individuals also become part of the financial system.


Regulatory Background


Mixin's design is based on a user-initiated, user-controlled model. The platform neither custodies assets nor executes transactions on behalf of users.


This model aligns with a statement issued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on April 13, 2026, titled "Staff Statement on Whether Partial User Interface Used in Preparing Cryptocurrency Securities Transactions May Require Broker-Dealer Registration."


The statement indicates that, under the premise where transactions are entirely initiated and controlled by users, non-custodial service providers that offer neutral interfaces may not need to register as broker-dealers or exchanges.


About Mixin


Mixin is a decentralized, self-custodial privacy wallet designed to provide secure and efficient digital asset management services.


Its core capabilities include:

· Aggregation: integrating multi-chain assets and routing between different transaction paths to simplify user operations

· High liquidity access: connecting to various liquidity sources, including decentralized protocols and external markets

· Decentralization: achieving full user control over assets without relying on custodial intermediaries

· Privacy protection: safeguarding assets and data through MPC, CryptoNote, and end-to-end encrypted communication


Mixin has been in operation for over 8 years, supporting over 40 blockchains and more than 10,000 assets, with a global user base exceeding 10 million and an on-chain self-custodied asset scale of over $1 billion.


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