Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawieck announced on Friday that his country will send 60 more modernized tanks to Ukrainian forces in addition to the already promised 14 Leopard 2 vehicles, Ukrainian Pravda reports.

Tank PT-91 “Tvardy”Photo: APFootage / Alamy / Alamy / Profimedia

“Well, first of all, we try to lead by example. Poland sent 250 tanks or even more a year ago, being the first country to do so,” he recalled in an interview with Canadian television CTV News regarding Soviet-made T-72 tanks sent to Ukraine in the spring of 2022.

Back on April 25 of last year, Morawiec stated that his government had sent tanks to Ukraine, but did not provide more information about it then.

“We are ready to send 60 of our modernized tanks, 30 of which are PT-91 models. 14 Leopard 2 tanks, which we have, are added to them,” he said.

The PT-91 “Tvardy” (“tough”, “hard” or “tough”) is a main battle tank produced in Poland as a modernization of the T-72M1 (an export variant of the T-72 tank produced under license in Poland). ), which entered service with the Polish army in 1995.

Therefore, these are relatively modern tanks compared to some models used by both armies during the war in Ukraine.

The Polish Prime Minister boldly talks about repelling the “barbaric attacks” of Russia.

“If we don’t want Ukraine to be defeated, we have to be very bold and open about supporting Ukraine,” Mateusz Morawiecki said.

“If Ukraine, God forbid, fails to protect its sovereignty and freedom, it will be only the first step in the Kremlin’s crazy strategy to restore the Russian Empire of the past,” the Polish Prime Minister emphasized.

“And I believe that if Russia wants stable and long-term growth, stability and development in a peaceful way, we must reject all these barbaric attacks by the Russians. These were arguments that, in my opinion, were also important for Chancellor Scholz, for President Macron and our allies in Western Europe,” the Warsaw leader also noted.

On February 11, Poland became the first partner country of Ukraine to announce plans to send Western-made German Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced on Wednesday that Germany would approve the transfer and that the Berlin government would in turn send a company of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.

Shortly after his statement, other European states also expressed their intention to do so, and US President Joe Biden announced that the US would send 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine.

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