Lineup of Leopard 2 A4 tanks with Ukrainian soldiers on the San Gregorio (Zaragoza) Álvaro García maneuver field
“The [maniobra] The environment is very good, but what if there are mines?” the Spanish teacher warns his Ukrainian students in the preliminary talk before the exercise they will carry out this Monday in the San Gregorio field (Zaragoza). “If it’s an order, it’s an order; and if there are mines, bad luck,” replies one of them, a bald and sturdy man who appears to be the eldest.
On Wednesday, the 55 soldiers who arrived in Spain on February 16 to learn how to drive the Leopard, the German-designed main battle tank provided to Kiev by European allies, will return to Ukraine via Poland. Many trust him to push back Russian troops that invaded the country in February 2022 this spring.
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It was four weeks of intensive training at the Army’s National Training Center (Cenad), with 12-hour days and no rest other than Saturday afternoons. “Of course we would have wished for more time, but the program has come true. We didn’t have to slow down the pace of the course as we had feared. They leave very well prepared,” says Captain Contreras happily. The key, he adds, “lies in their experience and motivation. His mood is surprisingly good. They look forward to returning to defend their country.” Those who have come to Spain, he explains, have already been tankers, although the tanks they are used to are of Soviet origin; and they have on fought on the front line Another instructor is less optimistic: “There is everything, some came from the countryside and could only drive a tractor.”
They are all male and one of the youngest is their boss, a 21-year-old lieutenant fresh out of the academy. The rest span a wide age range; including recovered reservists aged 60. Lieutenant Colonel Román admits that it is not the ideal age for a combatant, but he makes an irrefutable argument: “This is a war. It is what it is”.
The first two weeks were dedicated to intensive training with the simulators. The Cenad comes in all types: Fixed and Dynamic, Tower, Driver (which replicates the hits and swings of off-road driving) and Shooter. They later progressed to the school car, converted for use in the classroom, and finally to the Leopard 2 A4 tanks promised to Spain by Kiev. The approximately thirty instructors come from the Alcántara de Melilla regiment, one of the few units in the Spanish army that still operates this model and not the more modern Leopard 2E.
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“What we’re going to give them is better than what they have, it’s a step further,” says Captain Contreras, referring to the T-64 and T-72 owned by the Ukrainian army. On the other hand, it is not superior to the T-90 or T-14 Armata of the Russian armed forces, he admits, but Moscow has only been able to field a small number of its most modern tanks.
In addition to training 10 full Leopard crews – driver, loader, gunner and tank commander – 15 mechanical, electrical and weapons specialists were trained in Zaragoza, capable of ensuring support for the second stage of the tank – out of the four planned Revisions by the manufacturer for completeness – without leaving the front.
The students from Zaragoza are the elite of the more than 500 Ukrainian soldiers receiving basic or specialized military training (precision shooting, demining, health care) in Spain under the direction of the Toledo Training Coordination Center (TTCC). Despite this, the European Union Military Mission to Ukraine (EUMAM) did not grant him the command status that Defense sought, a role reserved for Germany and Poland.
The already trained Leopard crews will be back in Ukraine in a few days, but Kiev has not asked to train more crews for the time being. There are still weeks to go before the six tanks that the Santa Bárbara company is rehabilitating at its plant in Alcalá de Guadaíra (Seville) are ready; and even more so for the four additional tanks that President Pedro Sánchez promised his Ukrainian counterpart Volodimir Zelenski during his recent visit to Kiev.
The big challenge will be to bring the armored vehicles to the battlefield. Rail transport is the fastest, but not the least noticeable. And driving them through Ukraine is very expensive: they consume up to three liters of diesel per kilometer. Putin has made them a priority. Military sources confirm that its destruction would not only be a military success, but primarily a propaganda one. Moscow has vowed to scrap the main symbol of European military support for Zelenskyy.
Because of this, military sources emphasize the need for tanks to have strong cover from combat vehicles and anti-aircraft defenses. “A leopard itself is very vulnerable,” they warn.
In his previous lecture, the instructor captain insists on checking the self-protection measures. After training each soldier in their tactical post and manning each tank, comes the final phase: being able to act in tandem with a group of five tanks, including night combat and live fire, with Spanish tanks playing the role of the Russian enemy. . . “Is everything clear?” he asks them just before they climb into their Leopards and drive off, kicking up a cloud of dust in the San Gregorio field.
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