2023-02-28T21:26:00+02:00 Politics 2024-09-15T05:47:42+03:00

Ukrainian news

Countries From "Tank Coalition" Experiencing Difficulties During Formation Of Leopard 2 Tank Battalion For Ukr

Countries From "Tank Coalition" Experiencing Difficulties During Formation Of Leopard 2 Tank Battalion For Ukraine - Media

Countries from the so-called "tank coalition" a month after promising to provide Ukraine with German Leopard 2 tanks, have encountered difficulties that may lead to delays or the delivery of a smaller number of combat vehicles than previously announced.

This is reported by the American publication The New York Times with reference to officials familiar with the matter.

In total, European countries have approximately 2,000 Leopard 2 tanks at their disposal. Germany and other countries that are armed with these tanks have promised to transfer only 62 machines to Ukraine. The problems that surfaced showed that it would be difficult to collect even this number of tanks.

Some of the countries that promised to transfer tanks to Ukraine have found that the combat vehicles in their arsenals are really out of order or lack spare parts for normal operation.

This was caused by the policy of many European countries, which began to significantly reduce the funding of their armed forces after the end of the Cold War.

In 2014, when Russia illegally annexed Crimea, NATO member states agreed to spend 2% of their GDP on military spending until 2024.

The publication notes that out of 30 members of the alliance, only 9 countries spend 2% of their GDP on defense. The military expenditure of another 13 NATO countries is approximately 1.5% of GDP. The rest allocate less at all.

"When Russia launched the largest land war on the continent since World War II, Europe was completely unprepared," the publication notes.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on February 14, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that Ukraine should not hope for the formation of a battalion of Leopard 2 tanks as soon as possible.

As a reminder, Poland has so far transferred Ukraine only 4 Leopard 2 tanks out of the promised 14 vehicles.

And the Greek government refused to provide Leopard 2 tanks to the Ukrainian military at all.