Ukraine announces that it will receive “between 120 and 140” Western heavy tanks

BET À DAY

Ukraine will receive “between 120 and 140” Western heavy tanks, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba said on Tuesday, a few days after the Westerners gave the green light to such deliveries, after long procrastination.

“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 these were German-designed Leopard 2s, British Challenger 2s and American Abrams.

This is the first time that kyiv has revealed the total number of these tanks that its Western allies have promised it.

In recent days, several countries have expressed their intention to quickly supply these vehicles to Ukraine, like the United Kingdom which intends to supply Challengers at the end of March and Germany which intends to send its first Leopard 2s “at the end of March early April”.

Washington has announced the shipment of 31 Abrams.

But the delivery process could take months, according to several chancelleries, between repair needs and maintenance, in addition to training Ukrainian soldiers on these models that they have never used in the field before.

Besides these logistical problems, other countries, such as France , hesitate at this stage before sending their stock of heavy tanks to Ukraine, fearing in particular a possible weakening of their military capabilities.

Ukraine has already received foreign tanks in recent months, in particular more than 250 modernized versions of the Soviet T-72 from Poland, but so far nt the Westerners had been careful not to send their modern models for fear that it would provoke a new Russian escalation.