Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov today announced the arrival in the country of the first British-made “Challenger 2″ tanks that the London Government had promised to deliver to Kyiv.
“These UK- supplied tanks have recently arrived in our country,” Reznikov wrote on his Twitter account, adding that “these fantastic machines will soon begin their combat missions.”
The news of the arrival of the tanks comes a day after the Ukrainian soldiers who were training in the United Kingdom in the management of these armored vehicles returned to Ukraine after completing their training.
The UK plans to send 14 “Challenger” tanks to Ukraine. In his Twitter message, Reznikov did not specify the number of armored vehicles that have already arrived in Ukraine.
Along with his message, Reznikov has posted a video showing at least 6 tanks waving Ukrainian flags. The Ukrainian Defense Minister appears on one of them and thanks the British people and Government for this new delivery of military aid to Ukraine.
According to German media, the Kyiv government yesterday received 18 “Leopard 2” tanks from Germany and 40 “Marder” light infantry vehicles also sent by Berlin.
Ukraine has also received “Leopard 2” tanks donated by Poland, which was the first country to effectively hand over Western-made armored vehicles.
The United Kingdom Intelligence services indicated on Tuesday that the Russian forces have suffered “great losses” of armored vehicles in the framework of their operation to try to surround the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, located in the Donetsk region ( east ).
“Over the past few days, Russia has continued to prioritize an operation that attempts to encircle the Donetsk town of Avdiivka. However, the Russian forces have made only minimal progress at the cost of heavy losses in armored vehicles,” they said, according to a series of messages published by the British Ministry of Defense through its account on the Twitter social network.
Thus, they have explained that “the 10th Russian Tank Regiment has probably lost a large proportion of its tanks trying to surround Avdiivka from the south”, before detailing that this regiment “is part of the Third Army Corps, the first large formation created by Russia to support the invasion in Ukraine from August 2022.
“Numerous open source accounts suggest that the Third Army Corps has been especially plagued by problems of poor discipline and low morale. Despite the probable training period in Belarus, the formation seems to still show limited combat effectiveness.
On the other hand, the British Intelligence services have stated that “the losses of the 10th Tank Regiment have probably been due to a large extent to frontal assaults with tactical errors similar to those carried out in other failed armored attacks carried out recently by Russia. , such as those executed in the surroundings of Vuhledar”.
