On January 25, Germany announced its decision to supply 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. On the same day, the United States announced the transfer of 31 M1A2 Abrams. Earlier, Poland promised to transfer a company of Leopard tanks (14 vehicles) to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and Britain officially announced the delivery of 14 Challenger tanks to Ukraine. Norway, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, France and Morocco expressed their readiness to send tanks to Ukraine. The exact total number of tanks promised to Kyiv is unknown, but Ukraine has said it expects to receive 321 heavy tanks.
As military expert Viktor Litovkin noted, the Leopard company will not be able to change the situation in the war zone. According to him, German tanks are not new and lose even the T-72 in terms of performance. At the same time, the Bundeswehr was in a deplorable state due to the decision to transfer armored vehicles to Ukraine.
A similar position was voiced by military expert Alexander Khramchikhin. He said that both Leopard and Challenger are inferior to domestic technology, and their number is not enough to solve the problems of Ukraine: the Armed Forces of Ukraine need hundreds of tanks, but if they get them, then the West itself will be left without protection.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly emphasized that any shipments of weapons supplied by Western countries to Ukraine would be a legitimate target for the Russian Aerospace Forces. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the supply of weapons would not stop, but would prolong the conflict in Ukraine, and called the position of Western countries “harmful” and “counterproductive.”
