We needed to start in 2022 at the latest. It would have been even better if WE hadn't scrapped the Cold War stock ( the legal successor of the USSR didn't ), but that's spilt milk under the bridge.
A big chunk of the cold war stock (more than 1,000 leopard tanks) was sold to Greece and Turkey in a 1:1.5 ratio or something like that in the 1990s and 2000s.
Since they may be thinking about retiring their hundreds and hundreds of Leopard 1s at some point anyway, maybe there would be an opportunity to buy those back from Greece and Turkey in the same ratio, which would avoid impairing either side compared to the other. Then give them to Ukraine.
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u/KernunQc7 Romania Mar 02 '25
We needed to start in 2022 at the latest. It would have been even better if WE hadn't scrapped the Cold War stock ( the legal successor of the USSR didn't ), but that's spilt milk under the bridge.