EU country buys 49 secondhand Leopard tanks for Ukraine, arms dealer says

Versluys previously bought 50 Leopard 1 tanks for €37,000 each (about £29,600) that the Belgian government decommissioned in 2014 as part of a wider trend among western countries of cutting defence spending.

I never thought of myself as someone who'd own a tank, but at prices like that it actually seems like a realistic, attainable goal.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Dozens of secondhand Leopard 1 tanks that once belonged to Belgium have been bought by a major European country for the Ukrainian army fighting Russia, according to the arms trader who sold them.

Freddy Versluys, CEO of the private defence company OIP Land Systems, told the Guardian that he sold 49 tanks to another European government, which he could not name due to a confidentiality clause.

Versluys previously bought 50 Leopard 1 tanks for €37,000 each (about £29,600) that the Belgian government decommissioned in 2014 as part of a wider trend among western countries of cutting defence spending.

The German-made Leopards were at the centre of a public spat earlier this year after Belgian defence minister Ludivine Dedonder said it considered buying the tanks but accused the firm of trying to make a “huge profit” from the sale.

The clash underlined a predicament faced by western governments trying to 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.

“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 on Tuesday, accompanied by a picture of tanks next to a bottle of Ukrainian vodka.

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It's sad to say, but I feel it has to be mentioned that Leo 1 tanks are nothing like Leo 2. Of course, 49 tanks are always better than 0 tanks, but European countries should pull themselves together and get more Leo 2s to Ukraine asap. If (when) Ukrainian forces are going to spearhead through a breach or weakness in Russian defences, a large number of high quality tanks are going to be needed.

These models (1A5) were already old, and only used by heavy reconnaissance units when I was in the German army 32 years ago. The main tank brigades already had Leopard 2 back then. The main point of the Leopard 2 for Ukraine is that it has a longer range gun than the T-72 and whatever else Russia has, so that it can attack from a larger distance with relative safety. As far as I understand this is not the case for the Leopard 1. Probably better than nothing, though, and hopefully they'll still have better targeting electronics and night vision than their counterparts. Also, the Leopard 2 has more or less a standard NATO smoothbore gun, made by Rheinmetall, the same as the Abrams, and ammunition should be plentiful. That may be not be the case for the Leopard 1, which has a very different gun.