The UK government has confirmed that it has no plans to supply Ukraine with additional Challenger 2 tanks, according to a written parliamentary response from the Ministry of Defence.
Responding to a question from Brian Mathew, Liberal Democrat MP for Melksham and Devizes, on whether the UK would send further Challenger 2 tanks, Luke Pollard, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Defence, stated:
“At present there are no plans to supply additional Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine.”
The UK originally sent 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine in 2023, forming a combat-effective squadron that, according to the government, played a key role in encouraging other international partners to provide Western Main Battle Tanks to Ukraine.
While additional Challenger 2s will not be sent, the UK has recently committed to delivering more than 50 armoured and protected vehicles to Ukraine, including modernised T-72 tanks. These are set to arrive by the end of spring, adding to the over 1,000 armoured, protected, and logistics vehicles that the UK has previously supplied.
Pollard reiterated that the UK remains engaged with Ukraine to ensure that British military assistance aligns with Kyiv’s strategic needs, stating:
“We continue to work closely with the Ukrainian Government to ensure the capabilities we provide meet the priorities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
The UK remains a key military supporter of Ukraine but has so far chosen to focus on a wider range of military aid rather than expanding its commitment of Challenger 2 tanks.
Hopefully the penny has dropped we might actually need to keep at least 3 regts🤞
If they are not upgraded, there is no way.
Hopefully we’ll now upgrade the remaining Challenger 2s – we’ve still got around 200 so we should really upgrade them all.
Yes, even the French and Italian are upgrading and a whole swag of their current and Italy is ordering new Panthers. The UK should maximise what’s its got and not let things sit and rust. Not sure if buying some C1/2s back from Jordan/Kuwait (?) to upgrade is a good option to bulk out numbers?
*current MBT’s
Does anyone know how well the Challengers have performed in Ukraine?
The Daily Mail had a YouTube video on this subject few months ago
A cliche but Google is your friend .
Not well in the mud. Too low and getting stuck. Great for sitting still and hitting from a far but on the move. Not so good off roads etcc, which considering that’s what they were designed for. Not great.
Again it’s what you watch! One crew got stuck another went across the same field with no problems. All these videos are made by people with an agenda ie Brit stuff is crap etc but in the main the Ukrainians don’t seem to have a problem with them.(apparently)
Additionally there’s “off road” and “off road” in Ukraine. During the Rasputitsa it doesn’t matter if you have a CR2, T72, or whatever. You are going to bog in.