Thirteen Leclerc tanks are transported by rail from Mourmelon-le-Grand in the northeast. France based on zinc Romaniain the context of the defensive reinforcement of its eastern wing NATO.

The shipment is “the final act of a complex logistical operation that consisted of transporting by road and rail an armored brigade bound for Romania,” Colonel Samuel (the French army forbids publishing the names of its members) told AFP. who are in charge of logistics at the Ground Army Command Center for Continental Europe in Lille, northern France.

The goal is to reinforce the French-led mission that began on February 28, 2022 in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Tanks are “in a defensive position”.

The 13 tanks will cover “a little over 2,000 km,” a “week-long rail journey through five different countries in Europe,” Colonel Samuel said.

“This is a powerful weapon of war, but it is in a defensive position,” he explained.

The first columns of armored personnel carriers (VBCI) left the Mourmillon-le-Grand camp on 18 October, assisted by the 516th Toul Supply Regiment in eastern France.

In total, “we are in the business of transporting about 150 combat vehicles with all their equipment and ammunition, which shows the position of France in relation to its NATO allies” in Eastern Europe, said Colonel Samuel.

Asked about the information in the newspaper Le Monde that Germany allegedly refused to transport these tanks by road, forcing France to charter trains, Colonel Samuel replied that “from the very beginning” the army “expected” to use railways and road transport.

“The railway was chosen to meet technical standards, mostly German. General logistical processing is taking place at the same time as planned,” Colonel Pierre Gaudiger, a spokesman for the general staff of the armed forces, told AFP earlier.

^{Source: APE-MEB, AFP.}