by Chris Black
This’ll do the trick!
This is the last big push they need to break them over the edge and take Crimea!
It’s only a matter of days now – maybe only hours or minutes!
Putin is on the ropes!
Thirty secondhand Leopard I battle tanks are to be refurbished by the arms manufacturer Rheinmetall at the orders of the German government and exported to Ukraine, a spokesperson for the company has confirmed.
The tanks are part of a fleet of 49 vehicles that the Düsseldorf-based company purchased from the Belgian private defence company OIP Land Systems. Some of the vehicles are reportedly in such poor condition they will serve only for the supply of spare parts.
The spokesperson said he could not comment on the timeline for the delivery of the 30 Leopards for contractual reasons. Freddy Versluys, CEO of OIP, said this week it could be up to six months before the tanks arrived on the battlefield.
Versluys previously bought 50 Leopard 1 tanks for €37,000 each (about £29,600) that were decommissioned in 2014 by the Belgian government as part of a wider trend among western countries of cutting defence spending.
The Leopard 1 used to be the main battle tank of West Germany’s armed forces, first being used in 1965, but it has since been replaced by the Leopard 2 model.
We should note that these Leopards are not going to fail miserably like the last batch.
That’s because this time around, the Ukrainians have even more heart.
Winning is really 90% heart, 10% expensive Western equipment.
🇷🇺💥🇺🇦 "Lancet" vs Leopard
Thirty year old tank myth about the superiority and invincibility of Western Tanks collapsed in a month. pic.twitter.com/2uc1Q65M8L
— Sinnaig (@Sinnaig_) August 4, 2023