The Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz announced during a meeting with the President of the Czech Republic Petr Fiala that Czechia has already handed over 72 T-72 tanks to Ukraine, Ukrinform reports.
As compensation for these supplies, Berlin is to provide 15 Leopard 2 tanks, in addition to 20 Leopard 2A4 tanks and 40 Leopard 2A7 tanks that were ordered by Prague earlier. The first batch of Leopard 2 tanks should be delivered to the Czech army before the end of this year.
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At the same time, a very interesting aspect of the report about 72 T-72 tanks is that the Czech Armed Forces themselves (according to Military Balance) only have 30 T-72s in the T-72M4CZ version. In this way, the transferred 72 vehicles make up 240% of the tanks that are in service.
Of course, there is no "magic" in it, because as of 2021 there were 89 T-72s in the Czech Republic. And most likely, we are talking about the transfer of the vast majority (if not all) of these tanks from the storage bases. But for the first time it became known in the public space only in the middle of May.
Given that the tanks must be restored before the transfer the process of strengthening the Armed Forces of Ukraine with Czech armored vehicles most likely began much earlier.
Defense Express notes that the Minister of Defense of the Czech Republic Yana Chernokhova stated at the beginning of the summer that Prague will not publish the list of weapons transferred to Ukraine in order not to make life easier for the russian federation.
And in fact, this is already the second case when the Czech Republic's aid to Ukraine is voiced by another country. In particular, in June, the United States secretary of defense Lloyd Austin announced help from Prague in the form of combat helicopters and armored vehicles.
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