Poland announced on Wednesday that it will send Leopard tanks to Ukraine as part of an international coalition, the first Western-made tanks that Kyiv will receive since the start of the Russian invasion, Reuters reported.

Kyiv has been requesting Western tanks, including the German-made Leopard model, since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24 last year, but until now its Western partners have only supplied it with refurbished or upgraded Soviet tanks.

But the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, announced on Wednesday that his country would transfer a company of Leopard tanks to Ukraine as part of the formation of the coalition.

“We want it to be an international coalition,” he added.

His comments came after Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Saturday that Poland had no plans to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine without forming a broader coalition.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Monday that he remains convinced of the need to coordinate arms supplies to Ukraine with allies.

Poland is one of the few countries that has already sent battle tanks to Ukrainian forces, but these are Soviet T-72 tanks that remained in service with its armed forces after joining NATO.

Characteristics of the Leopard tank

The Leopard 2 is a main battle tank developed by the German arms company Krauss-Maffei in the early 1970s for the Bundeswehr. The tank entered service with the German Army in 1979, replacing the Leopard 1 model in the German Army. Several versions were used by Germany and 12 other European countries, as well as some countries outside the continent.

This tank was used in the war in Kosovo by Germany and in the war in Afghanistan by Canada and Denmark, members of the international coalition that fought against the Taliban regime.

But Poland is likely to give the Ukrainians the Leopard 2PL, a modernized version of the Leopard 2A4 tank, which is itself an improved version of the original model produced from 1985 to 1994.

Poland acquired more than 100 Leopard 2A4 tanks in the early 2000s and upgraded them based on a collaboration between the local arms industry and the German company Rheinmetall, thus creating a new “2PL” model after the country.

It has a 120 mm main gun, two MG3 machine guns as secondary weapons and is protected by composite armor consisting of layers of ceramic, steel and elastic layers.

The Leopard 2PL tank is equipped with a 1,500-horsepower engine, which has a range of 300 kilometers, and up to 500 kilometers when moving off-road.

The news is updated.