“Tomorrow Saturday, the training of more than 100 Ukrainian soldiers on Leopard-1A5 tanks will begin,†Pistorius said, quoted by RIA News .
He also recalled that Germany, according to Fox news , Denmark and the Netherlands agreed to repair and send 80 Leopard-1A5 tanks to Kiev. Deliveries will begin mid-2023.
The tanks will arrive as soon as they are ready, as many of them are not in the best technical condition after many years in storage.
The Leopard-1 itself was adopted by the German army in 1965. The 1A5 modification appeared in 1987 – it differed from the first machines, first of all, in a more advanced fire control system. The last vehicles were decommissioned by the Bundeswehr in 2010 and were in storage.
Apart from a few checks, this tank has little in common with the replacement Leopard-2, which is also being supplied to Ukraine. The Leopard-1A5 has modest armor even by mid-20th century standards and a 105 millimeter rifled gun that is weaker than modern tanks.
At the same time, this vehicle was widely used in many NATO armies during the Cold War. So there are a significant number of these tanks in warehouses.
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