Footage released on April 21 has confirmed that Russian ground units have captured a Leopard 2A6 tank during clashes with Ukrainian forces. The footage showed the vehicle appearing to be under evacuation from a combat area in a rural area and relatively undamaged, although missing tracks from both sides. Russian units reportedly had to blow off the Leopard’s tracks with explosives to get it moving, with the German-supplied vehicle expected to be placed on display after study by the Russian Armed Forces. The Leopard 2A6 is by far the most capable variant of the Leopard 2 provided to Ukraine, and among European tank classes is surpassed in its capabilities only by a very small number of Leopard 2A7s that have entered service from the end of the 2010s. The vehicles form a small minority of the Leopard 2 tanks the Ukrainian Army has received, with other Western donors such as Poland and Spain supplying much older and less survivable Leopard 2A4s. Both Leopard 2 types have proven highly vulnerable in combat.
Leopard 2 tanks have taken very serious losses since Ukrainian forces initiated mass offensives against Russian positions in early June 2023, with Leopard 2A6s being among the very first Western-supplied vehicles filmed disabled and destroyed by Russian forces. Footage has since shown the destruction of Leopard 2s on multiple occasions, with successful kills gained using a range of weapons from mines and man-portable Kornet missiles to new Vikr-1 missiles launched by Russian attack helicopters. In January it was confirmed that the majority of Leopard 2s operated by the Ukrainian Army had been rendered inoperable in combat with Russian forces, with over one quarter totally destroyed and the remainder damaged beyond the Army’s ability to repair them. Foreign Affairs was among the sources to highlight at the time that the tanks had proven to be “hardly invulnerable superweapons.” “Of the fewer than 100 Leopard 2s in Ukrainian service, at least 26 have been knocked out; others cannot be used due to repair and maintenance issues,” the paper noted.
In early January it was revealed by German sources that only a fraction of Ukraine’s Leopard 2A6 tanks remained available for service, with the class’ performance in Ukraine both in combat and in terms of availability rates and repairability expected to have a lasting impact on its reputation. Leopard tanks have notably been captured on multiple occasions in the past, with footage released in December 2023 showing Russian soldiers capturing several pieces of Western supplied heavy equipment including a Leopard 2A4. While reports of combat operations by Leopard 2s have made fewer headlines in 2024, with Western expectations for the class’ performance already having been disappointed, U.S.-supplied M1 Abrams tanks were first seen in combat in Ukraine in the final week of February and in the subsequent days quickly took heavy losses. With the American vehicles beginning to see combat almost ten months after the first Leopard 2s did, the class managed to avoid reputational damage during the summer 2023 offensives but, much like the Leopard 2A6, then took serious losses in the first days after seeing actual combat.
While the possibility of further deliveries of Abrams tanks from the United States remains uncertain, Spain is taking a leading role in supplying a new batches 19 of Leopard 2A4s. Beyond the issue of a difficulty keeping up with the rate at which Western tanks are destroyed, NATO members supplying Ukraine have also faced greater issues with keeping Ukrainian frontline units stocked with sufficient munitions to effectively operate their hardware – an issue which has crippled the Ukrainian Army’s frontline capabilities for months and played a central role in allowing Russian forces to make major gains.