Reports claim one of the Challenger 2 tanks donated to Kiev may already have been destroyed on Russian territory
Ukrainian forces are using British Challenger 2 main battle tanks inside Russia’s Kursk Region, Sky News reported on Thursday.
The UK government has donated 14 of its main battle tanks, and encouraged other NATO nations to provide their heavy weapons after the move was announced in January 2023. They were delivered to Ukraine’s 82nd Air Assault Brigade, but were mostly kept in reserve, after some were destroyed by Russian drones and artillery during Kiev’s attempted counteroffensive later that year.
The 82th is one of the Ukrainian units currently participating in the incursion into Russia. Sky News said the expeditionary force has deployed some of the Challenger 2 tanks, citing an anonymous source. The outlet offered no further details on the use of British armor on Russian soil.
On Wednesday, a Russian military-focused Telegram channel claimed that a video of a drone attack on a Ukrainian tank released earlier by another outlet shows the destruction of a Challenger 2.
The footage was originally published last Sunday. It allegedly shows a Lancet loitering munition strike near the town of Sheptukhovka in Kursk Region. The settlement was marked at the time as being close to the active frontline by Radio Free Europe, a US-funded news outlet.
The US and its allies have claimed that they did not have advance knowledge of the Ukrainian offensive into Russia, but expressed their support for it and the use of their weapons. Britain’s Labour government stressed this week that its policy on donated arms does not differ from that of the former Conservative government.
Former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told The Times that he established the rules, which allow Ukraine to hit targets inside Russia with anything given to them, with the exception of long-range Storm Shadow missiles.
”If that [attacks on Russian targets] involved the use of British weapons, as long as they were used in accordance with international law that was always permitted,” he said of the approach reportedly established over a year ago.
Moscow considers the Ukraine conflict to be a NATO proxy war against Russia, in which Ukrainian soldiers serve as ‘cannon fodder’. The hostilities were triggered by the expansion of the US-led military bloc and its increasing presence in Ukraine, Russian officials have said.
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