Portugal’s Prime Minister António Costa announced Wednesday that Portugal will supply Ukraine with three Leopard 2 tanks in March, all while working with Germany on their maintenance and recovery.
«We are currently executing the recovery and maintenance plan for Leopard 2 tanks and, according to the execution of the plan, we are in a position to be able to spare three next March,» Costa specified in the Portuguese Parliament, as reported by the Lusa agency.
In the meantime, Portugal is working with Germany – the manufacturer of the Leopard tanks – on logistics for the supply of parts, with a view to completing the recovery of the tanks, which were not operational.
Responding to criticism about the age of these tanks, acquired by the Portuguese Armed Forces in 2007, Costa said that to say that they have not been maintained for «many years» «is an exaggeration».
«Some of them are not operational and, for this reason, we have to work simultaneously with the producers to ensure the necessary supply chain, in order to recover the tanks that are currently inoperable and to be able to dispense with the operational tanks,» said the Portuguese head of government.
Thus, Costa pointed out that sending tanks to Ukraine will not jeopardize the national military capacity in terms of equipment.
The supply of Western tanks has been the main demand of the Ukrainian authorities over the last few months until Germany finally broke the deadlock. The United States also confirmed weeks ago the shipment of more than thirty Abrams battle tanks to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
