Ukraine has received the first Gepard anti-aircraft tanks from Germany. “The first three cheetahs officially arrived today,” Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on Ukrainian television on Monday. Several tens of thousands of shots were also handed over.
At the end of April, the federal government gave the green light for the delivery of the Gepard tanks, which are no longer used by the Bundeswehr. They come from stocks of the armaments company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW). In view of a possible rate of fire of 1000 rounds per minute, the initially available 60,000 rounds were criticized by experts as too low.
Germany wants to start delivering a total of 30 Cheetah anti-aircraft tanks from industrial stocks in July, the “Spiegel” reported. They are to be used in Ukraine to protect cities and other so-called critical infrastructure.