Ukraine Shows Off Fleet of Leopard Tanks in Rebuke to Russia

Ukraine has roundly rejected Russian claims about its military losses as it showcased what appears to be a fleet of battle-ready, German-made Leopard tanks as Kyiv’s grinding counteroffensive approaches its fourth month.

“The number of destroyed Leopards in the Russian Ministry of Defense’s daily reports[…]is not correlated in any way to the number of Leopard 2A4 tanks in the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” Kyiv’s Defense Ministry wrote in a post to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday.

The Ukrainian government also shared a video showing lines of Leopard tanks, many sporting the national flag, that it said were part of Ukraine’s 33rd Mechanized Brigade.

In January, Kyiv’s allies pledged the Western-made hardware that experts said was best suited to Ukraine’s needs given the entrenched Russian defenses that have so far caused its counteroffensive to stutter. Germany’s Defense Ministry announced in late March that the first of the Leopard 2 tanks had arrived in Ukraine.

But analysts have suggested that throughout Ukraine’s counteroffensive, which has attracted some criticism for the slow pace of progress against dug-in Russian forces, Kyiv’s military has largely held back its newly received Leopard 2 tanks after the first days of the push.

In June, Ukraine “tried using Leopards and got bogged down in the minefields the Russians had prepared as the part of their echeloned defense system,” Marina Miron, a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, U.K., previously told Newsweek. “This was a bitter lesson for the Ukrainian forces,” she added.

According to Dutch open-source intelligence outlet, Oryx, Ukraine has lost a confirmed seven Leopard 2A4s, and an additional nine of the later-model Leopard 2A6 tanks. As this tally only includes losses where there is photographic evidence for the equipment being taken out, the true count is likely higher, but it also lists damaged tanks which may be repaired.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive has attempted to push back Russia’s positions in southern and eastern Ukraine since early June, although Kyiv’s advances, including using tanks, have been held up by effective Russian mining of swathes of territory.

But on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed its troops were making progress and were “on the move” against Russia’s dug-in soldiers and well-defended positions. He has vowed to liberate the illegally annexed Crime peninsula which has been the target of drone and amphibious assaults in recent weeks.

“Ukrainian forces are moving forward,” he said in a post to social media. “Despite everything and no matter what anyone says, we are advancing, and that is the most important thing. We are on the move.”