The UK will supply Ukraine with twelve Challenger 2 main battle tanks.

The first four tanks will be immediately transferred to Eastern Europe, the rest will follow later.

This amount is sufficient to form one tank company.

According to The Independent, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has approved a plan to send these tanks to Ukraine.

The UK government will soon officially announce the decision on transferring Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine, media reports.

In general, the UK has 227 tanks in reserves and 12 of them will probably not matter much on the battlefield for Ukraine, but this will be the first time that the Western country agrees to send its modern heavy armored vehicles to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Kyiv hopes that this will open the way for a positive decision by Germany and it will consent to transfer Leopard 2 tanks. The latter serve with armies of 13 countries, but under sales and purchase agreements, therefore Berlin’s approval to re-export this equipment is necessary.

It has recently become known that the UK government is working on the issue of providing Ukraine with the main battle tanks.

It was reported that the country’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had asked Defence Secretary Ben Wallace to speed up aid to Ukraine, including the provision of tanks.

The Challenger 2 is a British third generation main battle tank in service with the armies of the United Kingdom and Oman.

It was designed and built by British Vickers Defence Systems.

The tank is equipped with a 55 calibers long L30A1 120mm tank gun and a modern fire control system.