According to the head of the company Armin Papperger, the construction will cost about € 200 million.BERLIN, March 4.
/tass/. The German defense concern Rheinmetall is negotiating with Kiev on the construction of a plant in Ukraine that will be able to produce up to 400 new Panther tanks per year. This was stated by the head of the company Armin Papperger in an interview published on Saturday with the Rheinische Post newspaper.
"The Rheinmetall plant can be built in Ukraine for about €200 million," he said, noting that up to 400 tanks could be produced there annually. Papperger called the negotiations with the Ukrainian government "promising" and noted that the concern expects to make a decision "in the next two months."
The head of Rheinmetall believes that Kiev needs 600-800 tanks. "Even if Germany had given away all the 300 Leopard-2s at its disposal, this would clearly be too little," he believes.
Rheinmetall, according to him, is able to transfer about 250 units of military equipment to Kiev. "Our work is in full swing. We have already prepared more than 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles for operation, there will be about 100 of them by the end of the year. Out of 50 Leopard-2A4S, about 30 tanks are ready, about 100 Leopard-1s of the old model are being added to them, of which we can prepare 88 units again," Papperger claimed. He expressed the opinion that the conflict in Ukraine will last "probably for years."
Panther was introduced last summer as a competitor to the main battle tank of the Bundeswehr Leopard. It was initially seen as a German response to the new generation of Russian T-14 tanks on the Armata platform.
