Weapons provided to Ukraine from the NATO country of Italy are reportedly not battle-ready, according to Kyiv sources speaking to the Financial Times.
magazine that the Leopard 2 main battle tanks, which had allegedly been “kept unused at warehouses for years”, were deemed unfit for purpose on the battlefield in Ukraine and were in desperate need of repair and refurbishment.
The reports perhaps explain the persistent demands from the Zelensky government for Washington to supply them with American-made military hardware, such as long-range precision-guided missiles and F-16 fighter jets, both of which the U.S. has apparently been hesitant to hand over to the Ukrainians. For the government of Giorgia Meloni, the reports of ineffective Italian weaponry will likely come as an embarrassment, given that she has spent considerable political capital domestically to support the war effort against Russia.
In order to have the weapons shipments approved in the first place, Meloni had to manoeuvre past objections from both of her coalition partners, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has had a longstanding friendship with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, as well as her deputy PM Matteo Salvini, who has also questioned if Western efforts in the region were doing more harm to the people of Italy than Moscow.
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