From the title of the post it is clear: Kyiv hopes that Britain’s decision will open the way for Germany, which will announce on January 20 whether to supply Leopard-2.
It is, according to the authors of the publication, a “handful” Challenger-2 seized from the British fleet, which owns 227 tanks. By itself, this “gift” to Kyiv won’t mean much on the battlefield, but it should set the precedent for at least one Western country agreeing to send its heavy armored vehicles to Ukraine.
There are now more than 2,000 Leopard tanks in Europe. They are in service with 13 countries, but there is an agreement on the sale, according to which, without the consent of Berlin, the tanks cannot be re-exported to Ukraine.
Last Wednesday, Polish President Andrzej Duda said during a visit to Lvov that Poland was ready to send a Leopard tank company to Ukraine, but it would be nice if this step became a broader example: “We want to,” he said. Doubt, “to be an international coalition.”
Later, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said that the decision to send Leopard to Ukraine had not been made. However, other senior German officials believe the country should allow countries like Poland to re-export some of their military stocks. At the same time, one of the leaders of the Green Party believes that “Germany should not get in the way when other countries decide to support Ukraine.”
Ukraine, in turn, claims that it wants to receive 300 tanks from the West, the publication also says.
