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Escalation: NATO Spain Sending More Tanks, Military Vehicles to Ukraine

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Spanish Minister of Defence Margarita Robles has announced that her country will be providing an additional four Leopard 2A4 main battle tanks to Ukraine, along with more infantry vehicles.

Minister Robles announced that the four new Leopard tanks would be sent to Ukraine following the first batch of six tanks, which are being prepared to be shipped to aid the Ukrainian war effort against Russian forces.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had pledged to send the additional tanks during his second visit to Ukraine since the outbreak of the Russian invasion several weeks prior, with only Germany promising to deliver more Leopards to Ukraine, El Mundo reports.

Alongside the Leopards, Spain will be sending a new batch of TOA M-113 infantry vehicles — but so far no specific number has been released.

Spain has trained 55 Ukrainian personnel on operating the Leopard tanks already, equal to around ten crews.

Countries across Europe and North America have sent equipment and ammunition to Ukraine over the course of the war but the impact on the militaries of those countries is beginning to take its toll.

Britain’s Defence Select Committee warned earlier this month that the country was running “dangerously low” on ammunition after sending military aid to Ukraine.

“It is clear that the UK and its NATO Allies have allowed ammunition stockpiles to dwindle to dangerously low levels,” the committee report said, adding that it could take over a decade to replace ammunition stocks.

The new supply of Spanish tanks comes as Ukrainian forces are on the back foot in the eastern city of Bakhmut, with Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) stating that the PMC Wagner group has taken around half of the city.

Ukraine has also suffered large air strikes in recent weeks, with one attack earlier this month seeing Ukrainian infrastructure pounded by 90 missiles and drones in a single day, killing at least six people.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.

Escalation Risk? Hours After USAF Drone Downed, NATO Jets Intercept Russian Planes Over Baltic

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Fighter jets from the UK’s Royal Air Force and the German air force intercepted a Russian strategic tanker on Tuesday, it has been revealed, just hours after the USAF lost a drone in a confrontation with Russian jets over the Black Sea.

Eurofighter Typhoon jets from the United Kingdom and Germany assigned to the joint NATO Baltic air policing mission in northern Europe were scrambled Tuesday to intercept a Russian military aircraft near Estonia which failed to respond to Estonian air traffic control, the Ministry of Defence said Wednesday.

The NATO jets visually identified and escorted the Ilyushin Il-78 air-refueling tanker, which was flying from the Russian mainland to Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave state in Europe between Poland and Lithuania formerly known as Konigsberg. After the intercept, the jets then escorted another Russian aircraft, an Antonov An-148 airliner.

In a Ministry of Defence statement seen by Breitbart London, a Royal Air Force pilot described the scramble to intercept the Russian aircraft, saying: “We were scrambled to intercept an aircraft that was approaching Estonian airspace. We identified and monitored it as it transited close to NATO airspace… Any aircraft that are not communicating with Air Traffic Control or on a recognised flight plan will be intercepted by us to ensure we know who they are and maintain flight safety for all airspace users.”

The interception came just hours after an unmanned USAF aircraft — a Reaper drone — was lost in the Baltic. The United States accused the Russian air force of downing the recon and attack drone by flying aggressively near it, dumping jet fuel onto it, and by coming into contact with the drone’s propeller, causing it to lose power and crash into the sea.

Furthermore, the U.S. accused the Russians of acting in an environmentally unsound manner because of their tactic of dumping aviation fuel from their own tanks onto the drone — possibly to try and cause a fire or to confuse optical sensors.

The Russian ambassador was subsequently summoned by the U.S., but Russia has insisted on its innocence in the matter, stating the drone crashed by itself without help from its fighters while acting aggressively towards what they claim as Russian airspace.

There are risks of escalation associated with bringing down equipment like Reaper drones, even though no U.S. lives were lost in the incident. There was nearly a retaliatory strike on Iran which, it is claimed, could have killed hundreds after the Iranian military brought down a Reaper drone in 2019. But the attack was called off at the last minute after President Trump weighed that killing a large number of people in retaliation for an unmanned aircraft was not just.