The Ukrainian armed forces received 18 modern Leopard 2A6 battle tanks from Germany to repel the Russian attack on their country. This was confirmed by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz today in Rotterdam at a press conference with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. “We deliver as advertised,” Scholz said.
In mid-March, the tank crews completed their training on the Leopard with a skirmish. As with other weapons systems, government agencies have not publicly announced the transport of the tanks for reasons of secrecy and security. The news magazine “Spiegel” reported the arrival of the tanks for the first time.
On 25 January, after a long period of domestic political wrangling, the German federal government announced the goal of “quickly setting up two tank battalions with Leopard 2 tanks for Ukraine”. In Ukraine, they are usually equipped with 31 tanks each. The main participants in the initiative are Poland, Norway, Canada and Spain. Poland delivered the first four Western Leopard 2A4 main battle tanks to Ukraine in February. Germany is supplying 18 Leopard 2A6s to Ukraine, and Portugal is supplying three other weapons systems.
Experts firmly believe that the Leopard 2 is clearly superior in combat against Russian armored troops. One of the reasons is that it has a stabilized weapons system and therefore can fire while driving, but the T-72, which is often used by the Russian armed forces, needs to be stationary to fire.