Berlin and Warsaw agreed to repair Leopard tanks for Ukraine

Germany and Poland have reached an agreement to repair Leopard 2 tanks for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

This was announced on July 24, 2023, by German Defense Ministry spokesman Mitko Müller at a briefing in Berlin, according to Ukrinform news agency.

The first two tanks had already arrived at the Polish enterprise for repair.

“We are glad that now Ukrainian Leopard 2А4 tanks can be repaired in Poland,” the speaker said.

He called the German-Polish efforts successful. However, Müller did not report the cost of such work or capacity.

On July 22, Polish Minister of National Defense Mariusz Blaszczak said that a repair hub for Leopard 2 tanks had begun work in the Polish city of Gliwice. According to him, the first two tanks have already arrived from Ukraine at the Bumar-Łąbędy plant.

It is worth recalling that the service center for damaged Ukrainian Leopard 2 tanks in Poland was to be opened at the end of May. It had to be jointly created by German Rheinmetall and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) and Polish Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa (PGZ). However, Germany had withdrawn from the agreement with the Polish side.

The media claimed that, presumably, the reason for this misunderstanding was the significantly inflated cost of repairing and restoring tanks by the Polish side.

According to Der Spiegel, the Polish PGZ demanded more than 100 thousand euros for the “initial diagnostics” of tanks, although in Germany, about 12 thousand euros were usually paid for such activity. In addition, PGZ was unwilling to assume any guarantees of repair.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, during a visit to Poland in early July, called for an agreement and stressed the need to launch a repair hub as soon as possible.

The Polish defense company PGZ later said that it was ready to accept Ukrainian Leopard 2 tanks for repair. At the same time, they noted that repairs will be possible only if they cooperate with Germany. First of all, this is due to the provision of the necessary spare parts, the main producers of which are German companies.

The Leopard 2 tank service center decided to build as close as possible to the border with Ukraine in order to reduce the logistical load as much as possible.