{"id":84456,"date":"2025-07-29T07:34:36","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T06:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=84456"},"modified":"2025-07-29T07:34:36","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T06:34:36","slug":"why-is-the-eu-planning-roads-fit-for-russian-tanks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/07\/29\/why-is-the-eu-planning-roads-fit-for-russian-tanks\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is the EU planning roads fit for Russian tanks?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I noted this line in an email from the FT this morning:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If Nato\u2019s tanks were called to respond to an invasion by Moscow\u2019s forces across the EU\u2019s eastern border, they would get stuck in tunnels, cause bridges to collapse and get snarled up in border protocols, Apostolos Tzitzikostas told the Financial Times.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The related article is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/email.newsletters.ft.com\/c\/eJyMkbtuHDEMRb9m1GkhUdSrUGEgWMB1kg-gRMo78L6i0WTjvw9iOEnrhg3Ji3twGk15uY23cpXHdpY5ZSguvWLuoKTY6F0Mzjun5ELr-ZmLrZWgotVibdAYQ9cELmi2NbduGWPy6lSCCz03G7nlihkDQ_TVh04WET10tRYw4E2EbNAZFw4sIUGP0rwAGeMXNP9LbYc-D-12UedymvO-Le5pgeMCx8fj8bFa4Nhu1ynXucCRY2RsljUTBI0BUKcaowYbEyM1a8Ev7vgBtbgvn8FaIGzycpHrfH8BMNaKRJ1yIJ0aNg1ARsdgnMNUYwdQ53Wbz1x8aCRCKdVEjYwzRnqr3NR93Hhvs2x3Gq9qlLG2Ew0-XPZxP70taCb9GrIJjXY63MbLYX9VQ37s8h5rjMSEKevuqGmM1uuEknT3zhFFj8Hw33Phr3Llb-vln1YEr2bZ95UX9_Qpr3PQdaM219v1mQvGZsiZplNuSSNE0WT8n-Gyrz361LPaNxnf95VLSA4sQNZYa9foMemUhbXPWAnZh8pR_SzwOwAA__8Q08Hn\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>, but it does quite spectacularly miss the point.<\/p>\n<p>The point is that if the above is true, then so is the following:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If Russia\u2019s tanks were to invade the EU\u2019s eastern border, they would get stuck in tunnels, cause bridges to collapse and get snarled up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, why is it that the EU wants to spend \u20ac17 billion to upgrade infrastructure to ensure Russian tanks can get easier access during the course of an invasion? I am struggling with the logic of that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I noted this line in an email from the FT this morning: If Nato\u2019s tanks were called to respond to an invasion by Moscow\u2019s forces<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/07\/29\/why-is-the-eu-planning-roads-fit-for-russian-tanks\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84457,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84456\/revisions\/84457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}