The 'Leopard' 2A4, in the port of Santander for shipment to Ukraine

MADRID, 19 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The six 'Leopard' 2A4 are already in the port of Santander to be sent this week to Ukraine by sea, military sources have confirmed to Europa Press.

The tanks have been repaired and tuned up at the factory of the Santa Bárbara company in Alcalá de Guadaíra (Seville) and have undergone certification tests by the Army at Cerro Muriano, in Córdoba.

Once these phases have been completed, they have been transferred by road to Santander to be sent from there to Poland, where all the military aid that countries send to Ukraine is received and distributed.

These are the first six 'Leopard' committed by the Government of Pedro Sánchez, but there are four other tanks that are already being rehabilitated to also join the Ukrainian army in the coming weeks.

All of them have had to undergo an intense recovery process after spending more than a decade stored without use in a warehouse in the Zaragoza neighborhood of Casetas. The Army withdrew them from service with the idea of ​​remodeling them for other functions, but this was never carried out and their condition deteriorated.

In fact, the Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, has revealed that they have had to be practically rebuilt to get them ready. The hours of work that the repair of the second batch of four tanks is requiring is already much higher than that dedicated to the first six, and Defense rules out that it is possible to recover more than the fifty units that were stored in Casetas.

Together with the 'Leopards', about twenty TOA armored personnel carriers will travel to Ukraine, which will be added to another 20 that already left Spain for Ukraine a month ago to transport troops and wounded.