Oleksiy Reznikov announced an “optimistic breakthrough” in the issue of Leopard 2 tanks.
The Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Oleksiy Reznikov, said that Ukrainian tankers will begin training on German Leopard 2 tanks, although there have been no announcements about their provision yet.
“We have a breakthrough – this is an opportunity for the countries that own the Leopards to start training missions, courses for our tank crews. We will start with this, and then we will move on,” Reznikov said in an interview with the Voice of America’s Ukrainian Service.
He added that he hoped that Germany “will come to a decision on the possible transfer of tanks in a calm manner, with its own internal consultations.”
“I am optimistic about this. Because the first step has been taken: we will start training (Ukrainian) crews of the program on Leopard 2,” the minister said.
According to Reznikov, the training agreements were reached thanks to the “tank” initiatives – Poland regarding the Leopard tanks and Britain regarding the Challenger.
Leopard tanks for Ukraine: details
On January 20, the Secretary of Defense of the United States of America, Lloyd Austin, urged the participants of the meeting of the Contact Group on Defense of Ukraine (the so-called Ramstein-8) not to slow down the pace of support for Ukraine. The US Secretary of Defense said that Russia is regrouping, recruiting and trying to re-equip its forces.
At the same time, Austin said after the meeting that there is no decision to provide Ukraine with German Leopard main battle tanks, as well as American M1 Abrams tanks.
The day before, the Bundestag did not support the proposal of conservatives to vote for the supply of Leopard tanks to Ukraine. The issue was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs for further discussion.
