Portugal will hand over three Leopard 2A6 tanks to Ukraine in March

Portugal is ready to ship three Leopard 2A6 tanks to Ukraine in March.

The Ministry of National Defense of Portugal reported this.

Last week, the country’s authorities confirmed their intention to transfer these tanks to the Armed Forces of Ukraine to counter a full-scale Russian invasion.

“Portugal is ready to send three Leopard 2 A6 battle tanks to Ukraine in March next year,” the Ministry of Defense said on Twitter.

This decision was made within the framework of ongoing contact with NATO members and partners.

Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa also confirmed these intentions in his Wednesday speech in the parliament.

He announced that Lisbon will hand over three Leopard 2 tanks of its own to Kyiv next month, Reuters reports.

According to him, the repair and restoration of these combat vehicles are currently underway.

“We are now implementing a plan to restore and maintain the Leopard 2 tanks, and according to the plan, we can ship three of them in March,” Costa said.

Earlier, the Head of the Portuguese government also emphasized that the transfer of main battle tanks to Ukraine does not threaten to reduce the country’s national military potential in terms of equipping it with military equipment.

According to him, Portugal is working with Germany to “enable a logistics operation to supply spare parts to complete the restoration of some [combat] vehicles that did not require repairs.”

Admiral António Silva Ribeiro, Commander of Portugal’s Armed Forces, previously stated that the country had 37 Leopard 2 tanks, but according to local media, most of them were inoperable and in need of repairs.