The German Chancellor, Olaf Schölz, reported on Monday the delivery of 18 Leopard 2A6 main battle tanks to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, a "significant contribution" to fight against the Russian invasion. British Challenger tanks and US Stryker and Cougar tanks are also already in Ukraine.
"The 18 Leopard 2A6 have arrived from Germany to Ukraine to serve the country in its defense against the Russian attack", Scholz explained during an event with his Dutch counterpart, Mark Rutte. "We have fulfilled what we advertised"has riveted, according to the German public television ARD.
The German Ministry of Defense has explained that these 18 tanks are accompanied by ammunition, several spare parts packages and two Buffalo armored vehicles along with personnel trained in Germany to handle them.
Defense has highlighted that with these combat tanks, added to the 40 Marder infantry combat vehicles that are already in Ukraine, "Germany fulfills its promise to equip and train armored units for Ukraine".
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Defense Minister, Oleksii Reznikov, has presented the first British Challenger main battle tanks that "reinforce armored fist" from army.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has released an image of the new war vehicles alongside Reznikov’s text. "Today I have had the honor (…) of testing the new acquisitions of our armored units: Challenger from the United Kingdom, Stryker and Cougar from the United States and Marder from Germany"has recounted.
These deliveries have a special symbolism for kyiv and Berlin after months of Ukrainian requests addressed to the German government. In January Scholz finally gave in to the pressure and announced the shipment of Leopard 2 after reaching an agreement with Washington whereby the United States would also send Abrams tanks.
Ukraine believes that these vehicles represent a qualitative improvement of forces based fundamentally on material from the soviet era.