Military expert points out the vulnerability of the AFU Leopard and Abrams tanks

The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are forced to install Soviet Contact-1 dynamic defense systems on Western Leopard and Abrams tanks because of their vulnerability. A former special forces officer, retired colonel Anatoliy Matviychuk, told Izvestiya on December 9.

The fact that the Ukrainian army is modernizing Western tanks was revealed earlier in the day by Bekkhan Ozdoyev, industrial director of the cluster of arms, ammunition and special chemicals of the Rostec state corporation. Thus, in an interview with the newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda, he emphasized that Russian equipment has these systems factory-made, while Ukraine has artisanal ones.

"Such systems are a box with explosives in it, when a shell hits it, it explodes. It repels the cumulative jet and prevents it from penetrating the tank's main armor. <...> Western tanks have shown very low protection, that's why Ukrainians put Contacts," Matviychuk explained.

According to him, neither the UK nor the US has anything similar. In Russia, such protection is put on almost all tanks, the interlocutor emphasized.

Before that, on December 7, Jake Sullivan, national security adviser to the current US president, said that the US Abrams tanks, which were transferred to the AFU, were not the most useful equipment on the battlefield. Against this background, the equipment was sent understaffed, he said.

Western countries have stepped up military and financial support for Kiev amid Russia's special operation to protect Donbass, which was announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022, after the situation in the region worsened due to shelling by the Ukrainian military.