Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, Andrei Melnik, has said that the country’s authorities expect to have at least a hundred Western battle tanks, mainly German Leopard, within three months.
In Melnik’s own words, the Leopards account for a large part of the Western tank fleet that Ukraine can have access to in the short term. According to him, there are about 2,000 of these tanks that could be quickly supplied to the Ukrainian Army.
«Leopards can be quickly shipped from Poland, from Germany or from other countries. I hope that we will have at least a hundred of these tanks (…). It is realistic to have them if we talk about a period of three months,» he said, Ukrinform reports.
However, Melnik warned that for Ukraine it is necessary «to place new orders for next year, or in two years», thus anticipating possible future requests such as those seen in recent months, where Kiev has intensified its pressure on Berlin to unblock the shipment of Leopards.
In fact, several high-ranking Ukrainian officials, such as Foreign Minister Dimitro Kuleba and President Volodimir Zelenski himself, have now indicated that their requests for arms supplies will revolve around fighter planes with which to confront Russia in the context of a war that is already heading towards its first anniversary.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
