President hopes Germany will provide spare tank parts for Ukraine

Poland's president has expressed hope that Germany will not only send Ukraine tanks but also spare parts.

Poland sent the first consignment of 14 promised Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine on Friday.

Speaking on the subject at a press conference after a sitting of the National Security Council on Friday, Andrzej Duda said: "When it comes to technical support, the greatest responsibility rests on the Federal Republic of Germany as the producer of these tanks. Without spare parts for the tanks, which Germany produces, their functioning will in all certainty be limited in time, there is no doubt about that."

The president said Poland had long appealed to Germany to join an international coalition it headed aimed at supplying tanks to Kyiv.

"They joined and I hope they will not only send tanks, because they have committed to that, but will also send parts, which to date have been a serious problem," Duda said, going on to explain that everyone who had had Leopard tanks had had problems getting parts from Germany, and that Poland had experienced such problems since 2015.

On Monday, Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said Leopard parts were a persistent problem and one that needed to be addressed by German industry.