British Defence Minister Grant Shapps on air of the TV channel Sky News confirmed that Russian servicemen destroyed a Challenger 2 tank in the zone of the special military operation.
“I can confirm that this is true,” said Grant Shapps .
The head of the Defence Ministry said that the tank was hit by Russian artillery, then the vehicle was hit again during an attempt to put out the fire.
“We transferred 14 of these Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine, we realised that they would be in a combat zone, that there could be losses of equipment, which happened in this case,” Shapps added.
The crew of six Ukrainian servicemen survived. He clarified that London has no plans to send Kiev a new replacement tank.
“No, they have 14 tanks, now one less, we have always been aware that this is a combat zone”, – said the head of the Defence Ministry.
The day before, footage of a smoking British Challenger 2 tank was published on social media. As The Guardian newspaper reported, until this moment, opponents have never managed to destroy the combat vehicle, which has been in service since 1994. The UK has supplied Ukraine with a total of 14 Challenger 2s.
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