Ukraine will send fifty soldiers to Spain this week to receive training in the management and maintenance of the Leopard-type battle tanks that the allies are preparing to send to the country to help it defend itself against Russian aggression.
This was announced in Brussels by the Spanish Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, upon her arrival at the meeting of the Support Contact Group for Ukraine that today will define the terms of the future shipment of tanks. Robles has not yet specified the number of Leopard vehicles that Spain will send, but she recalled that “the decision has been made” and that they will be of the “2A4” type, since the 2A6 models are reserved for national defense. The final figure will depend both on availability, since it is not clear how many of the Spanish stock are operational, and on coordination with the allies, but the calculation is that the shipment can be made at the end of March or the beginning of April.
The tanks that Spain is going to send “were in Zaragoza out of use for a long time and some were in a sorry state that makes it necessary to repair them”, explained the minister. Spain has already begun to repair some of them. But “it is not just a matter of providing these battle tanks, it is important to train the crews, maintain them and spare parts”, the availability of which is not clear. The Leopards, Robles recalled, require maintenance “daily”. Another factor that will determine the number of tanks that Spain and other countries will send is the interoperability of the different models provided by the allies (the Leopard, the British Challenger, the American Abrams…).
Taking into account that the training process for the handling and maintenance of this type of combat tanks lasts between two months and two and a half months, the calendar with which the allies work foresees that the first vehicles of this type can arrive in Ukraine. in late March or early April. Robles has defended the need to be discreet regarding the type of aid that the allies provide to Kyiv but has reiterated Spain’s total commitment to the country. “Spain is collaborating and sending all kinds of humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine, with a clearly defensive purpose, to defend the people of Ukraine who are being vilely massacred by Putin.” The prospects for the end of winter and spring “are very worrying,” he stressed.
After the meeting of the Support Contact Group for Ukraine, the so-called ‘Ramstein format’, after the name of the German city where it was established, the NATO defense ministers will hold a two-day meeting in which they will also address the situation in Ukraine, the urgency to promote the manufacture of ammunition to respond to the needs of the war and the defense of the allied territory as well as the protection of submarine infrastructures.
