The first Leopard 2 tank arrived in Kyiv, only a toy so far. This was announced on Tuesday, February 7, by the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov.
The model of the tank was brought to the Ukrainian capital by German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, whose visit to Kyiv was not previously announced.
“The first Leopard 2 arrived in Kyiv. Thanks to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, my colleague Boris Pistorius and the entire German people,” Reznikov wrote on Twitter.
For the post, the minister reinforced a photograph in which Pistorius hands him a model of the German Leopard 2 tank.
Reznikov added that in the future “there will be more of them.”
At the end of January, the German government confirmed the decision to send German Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. Germany is ready to form two tank battalions, at the first stage, Berlin will send a company of 14 tanks from the Bundeswehr stocks.
In addition, Berlin agreed to grant permission for the re-export of German Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv to those countries that plan such deliveries from their stocks. As a result, behind the decision of Berlin, plans to supply tanks to Ukraine were announced in Spain, Finland, Portugal, the Netherlands and Norway.
At the same time, Andriy Melnyk, Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister and former Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany, asked Germany for 10 times more Leopard 2 tanks.
On February 7, it became known that the Federal Security Council of the German government also approved the transfer of 178 Leopard 1 tanks to Ukraine. However, they will not be delivered before 2024. In addition, there are problems with 105 mm ammunition for the guns of these tanks.
Western countries have stepped up military and financial support for the Ukrainian side against the backdrop of a special operation to protect Donbass. Moscow has repeatedly condemned the supply of arms to Ukraine. So, on January 29, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that the supply of tanks to Kyiv was an extremely destructive step. In the same month, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov said that Russia perceives the supply of Western tanks to Ukraine as the participation of NATO countries in the conflict against the Russian Federation.
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