The Ukrainian army has released the first footage of British Challenger 2 tanks operating in the country.
Footage released by Ukraine’s 11th Separate Army Aviation brigade on Tuesday showed a Challenger 2 in dark-green livery rotating its turret.
No location for the filming of the video was given and it was not clear whether the tanks had been deployed to the front line.
Britain handed Ukraine 14 Challenger 2 tanks earlier this year, in the first donation of Nato-standard main battle tanks.
They are yet to be committed to combat and the Ukrainian military has gone to great lengths to conceal the tanks’ movements.
Over the weekend pro-Ukrainian social media channels shared a video of a Challenger II driving down a tree-lined road at an undisclosed location.
It is still unclear which unit the tanks are operating with.
The 11th is an aviation unit that typically operates Soviet-pattern Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters, not heavy armour.
Classified US intelligence documents leaked on the internet in April said the Challengers were assigned to a new unit called the 82nd Air Assault Brigade.
The same documents showed the brigade is also equipped with German Marder tracked fighting vehicles and American Strykers armoured personnel carriers, suggesting a unit designed to advance rapidly once other units have punched holes in the Russian defensive line.
The Ukrainian military has never formally acknowledged the existence of such a unit, however.
The Kyiv Post reported last month that the 82nd may be a fictional formation designed to mask the true destination of the Challengers.
