Ukraine will receive 120-140 Western heavy tanks

Ukraine will receive “between 120 and 140” Western heavy tanks, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba said on Tuesday, January 31, a few days after the Westerners gave the green light to such deliveries and long procrastination.

“In the “first wave of contributions”, the Ukrainian armed forces will receive between 120 and 140 modern tanks of Western models”said the minister in a video on Facebook, recalling that they were German-designed Leopard 2s, British Challenger 2s and American Abrams.

This is the first time that kyiv has revealed the total number of these tanks that its Western allies have promised it. For his part, the French Minister of the Armed Forces has promised to send 12 additional Caesar guns to Ukraine.

A long delivery process

In recent days, several countries have expressed their intention to quickly supply these vehicles to Ukraine, like the United Kingdom which intends to supply Challengers at the end of March and Germany which intends to send its first Leopard 2 “late March-early April”. Washington, for its part, announced the dispatch of 31 Abrams.

But the process could take months, according to several chancelleries, between upstream repair and maintenance needs, in addition to the training of Ukrainian soldiers on these models which they have never used in the field before.

French hesitation

In addition to these logistical problems, other countries, such as France, are hesitating at this stage before sending their stock of heavy tanks to Ukraine, fearing in particular a possible weakening of their military capabilities.

Ukraine has already received foreign tanks in recent months, including more than 250 modernized versions of the Soviet T-72 from Poland, but so far the West has been careful not to send their modern models for fear to provoke a new Russian escalation.