Ukraine will receive “between 120 and 140” western heavy tanks, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba said on Tuesday, days after westerners gave the green light to such deliveries after much hesitation.
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“In the first wave of contributions, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will receive between 120 and 140 modern tanks of Western models,” the minister said in a video on Facebook, recalling that they were German-designed Leopard 2, British Challenger 2 and American Abrams.
This is the first time Kyiv has announced the total number of these tanks promised by its western allies.
In recent days, several countries have announced their intention to quickly deliver these vehicles to Ukraine, such as the United Kingdom, which wants to deliver Challengers at the end of March, and Germany, which wants to send its first Leopard 2 “end of March” beginning of April”.
For its part, Washington announced the dispatch of 31 Abrams.
But the delivery process could take months, according to several law firms, between upstream repair and maintenance requirements, in addition to training Ukrainian soldiers on these models, which they’ve never used in the field before.
In addition to these logistical problems, other countries such as France are currently reluctant to send their stockpiles of heavy tanks to Ukraine, particularly fearing a possible weakening of their military capabilities.
Ukraine has already received foreign tanks in recent months, including more than 250 modernized versions of the Soviet T-72 from Poland, but so far the West has been wary of sending their modern models out of fear that it won’t provoke a new Russian escalation.