This is the best summary I could come up with:
BRUSSELS, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Dozens of second-hand Leopard 1 tanks that once belonged to Belgium have been bought by another European country for Ukrainian forces fighting Russia’s invasion, the arms trader who did the deal said Tuesday.
The German-made Leopards were at the centre of a public spat earlier this year after Belgian Defence Minister Ludivine Dedonder said the government had explored buying back tanks to send to Ukraine but had been quoted unreasonable prices.
The clash highlighted a predicament faced by Western governments trying find weapons for Ukraine after more than a year of intense warfare – arms they discarded as obsolete are now in high demand, and often owned by private companies.
Freddy Versluys, CEO of defence company OIP Land Systems, bought the tanks from the Belgian government more than five years ago.
Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper reported on Tuesday evening that arms maker Rheinmetall (RHMG.DE) had acquired the tanks and would prepare most of them for export to Ukraine.
“The fact that they leave our company proves that we asked for a fair market price and someone was more than happy to take them,” Versluys said in a post on LinkedIn, accompanied by a picture of tanks next to a bottle of Ukrainian vodka.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Weren’t they talking about hundreds of leopard 1’s earlier in the year?
Not hundreds but exactly 100 ex-Danish Leopard1A5s financed jointly by Denmark and Germany with the first batch delivered 2 weeks ago…
Doesn’t mean that other countries still having some stored are not clinging to them, just like most of them cling to the Leopard-2s they were all eager to send.
Belgium in this case refused to buy back theirs from the private company they had originally sold them to for pricing reasons. So now Rheinmetall seems to have bought them instead to get refurbished then send to Ukraine.
(for the “seem to have”-part… Belgium is refusing to comment, the Belgian company is not disclosing name of the buyer, just the fact that they sold all 50 they had…)
Looks like the German ones went AWOL
17 months of Germany being one of Ukraines biggest supporters later and you guys still run on the same “They only promise but never actually will deilver anything”-narratives by the same German anti-government publisher… it’s seriously pathetic.
Honestly just an observation, I had heard about hundreds earlier and went to look what happened to them. As I recall there were supposed to be 4-5 countries sending varying amounts of leopard 1’s, so I don’t think it’s only Germany that didn’t come through.
But since you went there, I don’t think we can credibly call Germany one of Ukraine’s biggest supporters, unless you consider them big just because they have a big GDP, which isn’t really a fair metric for comparison. They are a supporter however, and for that I am thankful.
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64 years into the war and Germany eventually send some of the promised tanks…
From the article:
Freddy Versluys, CEO of defence company OIP Land Systems, bought the tanks from the Belgian government more than five years ago.
He told Reuters he had now sold all 50 tanks to another European government
It was super obvious that everything you said was a lie, but these tanks are NOT owned by Germany. I guess the word Germany triggers you.
Absolutely not. Germany has very strict resale licencing on their exports. Countries cannot sell them without Germany’s permission, and they dragged their feet until finally agreeing.
“Only 10 of the 110 promised Leopard 1 tanks have been delivered so far, the report says.”
"Ukraine is also yet to receive any of the four promised IRIS-T missile defense systems or the 20 Marder armored vehicles, while roughly just 850 of the 26,350 155 mm artillery shells promised have been delivered.
The package also included several hundred drones, air surveillance radars, tankers, ambulances, and heavy-duty articulated lorries.
Die Welt noted that it was possible that the weapons commitment may be “withdrawn,” citing the example of 5,032 anti-tank handguns that had been listed as being prepared to be sent to Ukraine since the early months of the war, which have now disappeared off the site without any explanation.
It is not clear why Germany is dragging its feet over sending the weapons, although it was also slow to provide Ukraine with military aid at the beginning of the war. Despite that, it has since become one of Kyiv’s biggest arms suppliers."
So, everything I said was a lie… I said 64 years, which is clearly an exaggeration. I thought that much was obvious. The delay in sending tanks is indicated above. Do you want to tell me which parts are factually incorrect or how promised arms have been actually delivered in a prompt fashion?
