"Leopards at large, but there are few on earth": Why only 62 tanks will be transferred to the Armed Forces - NYT

Supply of Ukraine's military assistance has already shown a long -standing problem - Europe chronically allocates a little money for its army. No one believed that the continent could have a war of the Second World War. Since the announcement of Berlin that they allow to supply Ukraine Leopard 2, there was no large number of tanks. It turned out that Europe's armies saved the army chronically, and cars are not ready for battle. About it reports The New York Times.

After permission to the German tanks, many political leaders are faced with the fact that their Leopard 2 is in poor condition or have no spare parts. In addition, countries have begun to have resistance from the inside. Some of the states returned to the service of instructors to teach the Armed Forces fighters. The publication states that the supply of Leopard tanks shows the reality that Europe has ignored for a long time - chronic underfunding of armies.

No one believed that there could be a full -scale war with a lot of troops in Europe. Therefore, for Europe, it became a real challenge to transfer to Ukraine two tank battalions for 62 tanks. German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz stated that it was surprised that some of the countries reproached Berlin for a ban on the transfer of tanks, but as soon as such a ban was lifted, they did not transfer any car. "It's something that shocks me a little.

Obviously, there were some nations - and I will never call the names here - but we had some nations that preferred to hide behind Germany. To say, we would be happy if we were allowed. But When we allowed, they did nothing, "says Olaf Soltz. Germany will transmit 18 Leopard 2A6 tanks, Poland - 14 2A4. However, it is not known who will compensate for the loss of cars that can be on the battlefield in Ukraine. Finland has 200 LEOPARD 2 tanks, but will only hand over 3 cars to Ukraine and for mine.

Some officials hoped that Finns would be able to pass more tanks, as the US and Britain promised to defend the country before NATO accession. Sweden, which also insisted on the supply of Western VTTs, will transfer up to 10 tanks. The military spoke against the publication. Spain in the summer of 2022 stated that she wanted to transfer Leopard 2A4 to Ukraine. However, now it turned out that they needed to be repaired before sending to the Armed Forces.

Poland has already provided the first 4 of the 14 tanks of Ukraine. And here the sources of the publication say that the Poles can transfer more, but the supply of ordered Korean K2 is required. Because Warsaw handed hundreds of other tanks to the Ukrainian army. At the same time, there are options for getting out of the situation: we will remind that on February 27 in the German Defense Ministry they said that the West will be able to transfer 62 tanks of Leopard 2.