Leopard and Challenger 2
London and Warsaw are already training on battle tanks
2/4/2023 8:28 p.m
British main battle tanks are due to arrive in Kyiv in the spring, so it’s high time for training for Ukrainian soldiers. The UK started doing this days ago. Training is also in full swing in Poland.
Poland has already started training Ukrainian soldiers to use Leopard tanks. Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said according to a report by the news portal TVP.info. The pro-government portal reacted explicitly to German media reports, namely the “Spiegel”, according to which several NATO countries were late in fulfilling their Leopard delivery promises to Ukraine and Poland wanted to deliver the tanks without the additional soldier training required for this.
The PAP news agency reported on Friday evening that Blaszczak had traveled to Kyiv to talk to government officials there about the so-called tank initiative to supply Leopard tanks to Ukraine. He announced that Ukrainian soldiers were already being trained in Leopards in Poland.
Although it is not yet possible to say exactly how much time is needed for this, it will in any case “not be a matter of days and not months”, but “a matter of weeks”. According to PAP, Blaszczak explained in Kyiv that the exact delivery modalities for the tanks themselves will be discussed with the NATO allies at a meeting in mid-February. His Ukrainian counterpart Oleksiy Resnikov and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked him personally for Poland’s pioneering role, which made the delivery of Leopard tanks to Ukraine possible in the first place.
Moscow is probably preparing an offensive
In Great Britain, too, Ukrainians are already being trained on battle tanks, albeit on Challenger 2 models. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said this in a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to Downing Street. The training started this week, Sunak said. The Ministry of Defense in London had published pictures of the training at a military training area.
Selenskyj confirmed the start of the training via telegram and said that he had thanked Sunak for it in the conversation. “We also talked about expanding the capabilities of the Ukrainian army and about various aids to Ukraine in the short and long term,” wrote the 45-year-old.
Great Britain was the first country to promise delivery of modern main battle tanks. 14 Challenger 2 tanks are to be handed over to Ukraine by spring. Therefore, the Ukrainian crews must be trained quickly on the device. In recent months, Kyiv has repeatedly demanded that the West supply tanks and other heavy weapons in order to be able to withstand the Russian war of aggression that has been going on for almost a year. According to expert estimates, Moscow is currently preparing a major attack.
The Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valeriy Saluschnyi recently estimated the need for heavy weapons to be able to go on the offensive again and recapture territories at 300 main battle tanks, 700 armored personnel carriers and 500 howitzers. Currently, the West’s pledges for tanks are about half that.