Poland Tried To Drastically Inflate Cost Of Repairing German-Made Leopard Tanks

Germany has refused to set up a service center in Poland for the maintenance of German-made Leopard tanks handed over to Ukraine because Warsaw tried to drastically overestimate the cost of the work, a representative of the Polish industry said.

In mid-June, Poland's ambassador to NATO, Tomasz Szatkowski, said that Warsaw and Berlin were planning to set up a repair center for German-made Leopard tanks in Poland. In July, German media reported that the country was pulling out of the project due to Warsaw's inflated expectations regarding maintenance payments.

"Everything was almost ready, preliminary documents were signed, German experts examined the technical base in Poland and were satisfied, but the parties did not agree on financial issues," the source said.

Warsaw showed "excessive appetite" regarding the payment for future repair work on Leopard tanks, the official added.

"Of course, carrying out any procedure on a tank has its own cost, which consists of various components. But it turned out that Poland wanted to receive much more for various operations than, for example, it costs in Germany to maintain and repair the same tanks," the source said.