Uselessness of Leopard tanks admitted in Ukraine, Germany delays delivery of MRAP armored vehicles to Kiev

Leopard tank useless?

“The Leopard's use on the front line is no longer there, it is short-lived,” the source, codenamed “Phoenix,” told the publication.

The author of the article notes that the situation of the Ukrainian army in general is quite bad. For every armored infantry vehicle that the Ukrainian army has, the Russians have 10, and for every Ukrainian soldier there are 30 Russians.

Earlier, the Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) William Burns said that Ukraine could be defeated in a conflict with Russia by the end of this year. Last week, the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian army, Alexander Syrsky, admitted that for Ukraine, the situation on the battlefield has become worse due to Russia's active actions with tactical successes.

Germany delays delivery of MRAP armored vehicles to Ukraine

MRAP (mine-resistant ambush protected) armored vehicles with enhanced mine protection for Ukraine due to the problem of spare parts produced in the United States and restrictions on export licenses from the United States to Germany, the Bild newspaper refers to the published documents.

As Bild notes, Ukraine and the Flensburger Fahrzeugbau GmbH (FFG) company signed a contract to produce a total of 400 such vehicles. The total volume of orders financed by Germany amounts to 315 million euros.

The newspaper cited a German Defense Ministry document dated September 2023, which provided data showing that FFG expected to deliver 20 units between January and October 2024. Thus, during this period it was expected to send a total of 200 vehicles. However, deliveries never began.

“To date, not a single vehicle of this type has been delivered. The delivery of vehicles is planned for 2024 in several stages,” the publication quoted a Defense Ministry representative as saying in response to the newspaper’s request.

According to Bild, the delivery schedule for early 2024 was canceled and postponed to a later date. Instead of 200 vehicles, only 100 MRAPs were expected to be delivered this year. At the same time, the start of deliveries was postponed from January to May 2024.

Russia believes that supplying weapons to Ukraine violates the rules, directly draws NATO countries into the conflict and is a game of “playing with fire”. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted that any goods containing weapons for Ukraine will become a legitimate target for Russia. The Kremlin believes that arming Ukraine with Western weapons does not contribute to negotiations and will have a negative impact.