The very first "Belgian" Leopard 1 tanks left for Ukraine on Monday. The military vehicles were not delivered by the Federal Government but came from a private arms dealer – yet who actually bought them is not known.
At the OIP Land Systems warehouse, one of the companies of the East Flemish engineer and arms dealer Freddy Versluys, the first two of a total of 50 "Belgian" Leopard 1 tanks have left for delivery to Ukraine, Business AM reports.
"The tanks will first stop in Germany and Italy, where they will be overhauled and given modern weapon systems. After that, they will travel on to the battlefield," Versluys confirmed to De Standaard. "Although that will all take quite some time. Transport alone will take several more weeks. You do not put 50 tanks on a truck in a few days."
Versluys bought all of Leopard 1 tanks about 10 years ago when the Belgian army sold them as part of a cost-cutting operation and decided to replace all heavy-tracked vehicles with lighter armoured vehicles on tires.
Confidentiality clause
At the start of this year, Defence Minister Ludivine Dedonder announced that the Federal Government was seeking to buy back the sold tanks to donate to Kyiv, but that Versluys asked an "unreasonable price," without making any significant changes to the now obsolete material.
Now, however, he has found an interested party who immediately bought up the entire lot to donate to Kyiv. Which country that is and how much money the 50 tanks were sold for are confidential. Although only Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands have so far announced that they will donate Leopard 1 tanks to Kyiv.
"There is a confidentiality clause in the sales contract," he said. "Of course, I have to stick to that."
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OIP also supplies sensors for weapon systems in addition to rolling stock, but the company is no longer involved in upgrading the tanks. Versluys said it does not know when the customer expects to be able to deliver the tanks to Ukraine, and where exactly they will be used. Earlier, he said that it could "easily take half a year" to modernise the tanks.
The Leopard 1 tanks are not the only army equipment that OIP is preparing to ship to Ukraine these days: Versluys said his employees are currently also preparing 90 armoured M113 infantry vehicles for shipment. At least some of those vehicles were bought up and donated to Kyiv by the United Kingdom.
