Portugal’s Prime Minister António Costa announced Saturday the dispatch of Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine as part of a logistics operation coordinated with Germany that includes the repair of some of these vehicles.
Costa informed about the measure after finishing his visit to the Portuguese military mission in Central African Republic and stressed that this shipment will not affect the Portuguese military capacity in terms of equipment, according to the Portuguese press.
«At the moment we are working to be able to get the conditions to deliver some of our tanks. I know how many tanks they will be, but it will be announced at the right time,» Costa said.
When questioned about the date of delivery of the tanks, Costa said that «the movement that is underway in Europe is in the sense of having the set of means made available by the end of March».
Lisbon is in communication with Berlin to «allow a logistic operation for the supply of parts in order to complete the recovery of some of the tanks that were not operational».
Costa stressed that this delivery «will naturally leave Portugal’s military capability intact.» «Obviously Portugal also has obligations in the NATO framework that we cannot fail to fulfill in terms of availability of equipment for interventions in case of need,» he explained.
Regarding the situation of the Portuguese Leopard battle tanks, acquired in 2007, and the criticism for the lack of maintenance, Costa assured that «it is a great exaggeration to say that they have not been maintained for many years».
«Some of them are not operational and that is why we have to work simultaneously with the producer to ensure the necessary supply chain with a view to recovering tanks that are currently inoperative and to be able to deliver operational tanks», he pointed out.
Costa pointed out that «there has also been a lack of components in military equipment». «This logistical operation is underway and we have worked very closely with Germany. At the same time we are managing to make our contribution to the collective effort to provide Ukraine with better means for its defense,» he argued.
Costa recalled that in addition to this war material, Portugal provides Ukraine with humanitarian material, humanitarian aid and refugee reception.
«We have given emergency support to the Ukrainian budget and there are programs with the Ukrainian government for the reconstruction of schools in one province. We also have the effort that has resulted from the repositioning of military forces within the NATO framework and that has had as a consequence the reinforcement of the eastern flank, where Portugal is present with reinforcements in Romania,» he explained.
Finally, Costa said that in the coming months he will send an air police mission to Lithuania. «This will allow us to be more involved. For example, Romania is going to send forces to participate in the MINUSCA operation in the Central African Republic. This is not a counterpart as such, but is part of the cooperation we have developed with Romania,» he pointed out.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)