Spain will donate to Ukraine six Leopard 2A4 tanks, which were no longer in service and are being repaired by the Spanish army, the defense minister announced on Wednesday.
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"
Spain is repairing a platoon
" of six Leopard 2A4 tanks "
to upgrade them and integrate them (to be sent) from other
" Western countries to Ukraine, Margarita Robles told the House of Members, without giving any details on the timetable for this dispatch.
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Unusable tanks
She also assured that Madrid could repair other tanks of this type in order to send them to Ukraine "
if necessary
" and if "
our allies asked us to do so
".
Stored in a military base in Zaragoza (north), some of the Spanish army's Leopard 2A4s "were
no longer usable because they had not been repaired since 1990
", underlined the minister who had mentioned in the past the "
lamentable
" state
of some of these Leopards.
After being pressed from all sides to give the green light to sending this jewel of German armament, Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged, on Friday at the Munich Security Conference, his allies to deliver the promised tanks in Kyiv.
Military assistance to Ukraine "
implies that everyone who can provide such battle tanks really does
," he said.
Read alsoWar in Ukraine: the Leopard 1, an old tank dusted off by Berlin with which kyiv will first have to be satisfied
According to some experts, the Leopards could have a decisive effect on the battlefield and are expected by Ukrainian forces who fear a major Russian offensive in the coming weeks.
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