Poland handed over the first Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine after repairs

Polish defense holding company PGZ (Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa) has provided Ukraine with its first refurbished Leopard 2 tanks.

,,Kiev has received the first Leopard tanks, the Bumar-Łabędy arms manufacturing company is handling special upgrades, with work on other vehicles to come’’, PGZ said in a statement on the X (formerly Twitter) social network.

On March 9, Poland transferred ten German Leopard 2A4 tanks to Kiev.

The German Minister of Defense, Boris Pistorius, announced on April 21 this year that plans to create a Leopard tank servicing center together with Poland. According to him, the parties signed a corresponding letter of intent, with construction costs estimated at around 150 million euros and the German government planning to cover the costs of repairs.

At the beginning of July this year however, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that Warsaw and Berlin could not open a joint center for the repair and maintenance of Leopard tanks deployed in Ukraine due to a lack of spare parts, and that negotiations should have taken place earlier.

,,There are questions from both the Polish Defense Industrial Group and the German counterparts. We have to work closely with Berlin to have the procedures ready’’, Morawiecki said.

However, on July 22, a Leopard repair center was opened in Poland in the municipality of Gliwice, and that the first two tanks have already arrived from Ukraine at the Bumar plant.

The Russian press condemns the supply of Western weapons to Kiev. In June of this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Leopard tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles were ,,burning beautifully’’ in Ukraine.