Spain is ready to give Ukraine Leopard tanks and Aspide SAMs – El Pais
The Spanish government is ready to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons. This was reported by the Spanish newspaper El Pais, citing government sources.
So far, this country has supplied us with ammunition, personal protective equipment, and light weapons, such as C-90 grenade launchers or machine guns.
Now Spain is preparing to supply heavy weapons: surface-to-air missile systems and Leopard battle tanks. In addition, the Spanish military will take over the training of Ukrainian soldiers.
The magazine wrote that the Spanish Defence Ministry is completing the delivery of a battery of short-range Shorad Aspide surface-to-air missile systems to Kyiv. The Spanish army replaced these systems with a different, more advanced one.
The Spanish government is also ready to supply Ukraine with Leopard A4 battle tanks, which have been mothballed at the Spanish army’s logistics base in Zaragoza for ten years.
These tanks are part of a batch of 108 used units that Germany sold to Spain in 1995.
Defense sources estimate that about 40 tanks could be repaired and transferred to the Ukrainian army. In addition, Spain has offered to train the Ukrainian military in handling these battle tanks.
The exercise, according to the sources, will take place in Latvia, where the Spanish army has deployed a contingent of 500 soldiers with six Leopard 2E tanks as part of a NATO operation.
In the second stage, the training of Ukrainian tankers will already take place on the territory of Spain.
Earlier, Switzerland had allowed Germany to supply other European countries with tanks of German origin that were in service with the Swiss army.
Source: El Pais
