Ukraine’s defense minister Oleksiy Reznikov has confirmed the country took delivery of three German short-range air defense systems.
“Today, the first three Gepards officially arrived. These are anti-aircraft systems, to which tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition have been transferred to us. We are waiting for the first 15 Gepards. Three have arrived in Ukraine today. They are already at the disposal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” said Oleksiy Reznikov on Monday.
In mid-July, the German government announced that it planned to send at least 30 Gepard air-defense “tanks” to help that country repel Russian attacks.
The Gepard vehicles, made by German defense conglomerate Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, are no longer in the inventory of the German armed forces, but the manufacturer has kept a number in its own stocks.
According to KMW, the armoured, all-weather Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft gun has set standards since its introduction and has been continuously modernized in the fields of combat range, hit probability, reaction time, protection, reliability and ergonomics.
The Gepard is designed to defend against modern combat aircraft, attack helicopters, remote-controlled missiles and rockets. It can also dependably combat drones. The ballistic projectiles cannot be destroyed by electronic defense measures and the clouds of shrapnel they generate will reliably destroy the target.
KMW has mass-produced 570 systems of this type as general contractor and has also been the main contractor for the technical and logistical support for the system since it went into use. Gepards have been supplied to Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Romania.
