Is Poland sending T-72 tanks and other vehicles to Ukraine? This is what we know

@DefAviation ES 4·12·2022 · 21:40 0

Various information and rumors have been circulating in recent hours about the possible shipment of T-72 tanks and other Polish military vehicles to Ukraine.

The S-300 surface-to-air missile battery that Slovakia has delivered to Ukraine
The main battle tanks and other vehicles that the Czech Republic is sending to Ukraine

I have been tracing the origin of this information in Twitter accounts in English, Polish and other languages. On April 8 at 14:10 CET, the Ukrainian account @UKR_Report published this message: "Poland gives T-72 tanks to Ukraine." It does not specify the number of the tanks or the source of that information, nor does it include any link to a news story.

In response to a tweeter who shared the information from that Ukrainian account, on the same day the Polish account @handloviec stated: "I wrote about it a few days ago, but I deleted the post. It's probably about 100 T-72s."

On the same April 8, at 17:12 CET, the website shephardmedia.com stated the following in a news: "Also on 8 April, NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana announced that Poland is transferring an undisclosed number of T-72M/M1 MBTs to Ukraine, although no timeframe was given." I have searched Mircea Geoană's Twitter account and other media and there is no trace of his alleged allusion to the Polish T-72, except for a blog that seems to have been inspired by information from Sephard Media: hybridtip.com. It is strange that a senior NATO leader makes such an announcement (if he did) and not even reported by the Polish media.

On Sunday April 10, at 17:53 CET, the Twitter account of the military blog The Dead District published this information stating: "Poland sends first batch of T-72 MBT to the Ukraine." The tweet included a photo of a Polish T-72 on a trailer.

That tweet started to go viral. It must be said that the photo is not current: it was published on Reddit 5 years ago. Once again, the source of the information is not indicated nor is any news linked.

This Monday, Bartosz Dyląg spoke about those rumors in the Polish outlet WNP.pl: "Now news began to circulate that Poland sent the first batch of 100 T-72 tanks to Ukraine. Unofficially, it is said that we also delivered the BM-21 Grad launchers to the Ukrainians. So far, no one confirms the reports of new Polish deliveries. However, it is known that there has been little publicity surrounding the supply of weapons to Ukraine for a long time. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba recently said that the issue of handing over weapons needs silence."

Last night, the Twitter account @visegrad24 posted this message: "Rumors swirl in Poland about the Polish authorities discovering that 100 modernized T-72 M1R have disappeared from a storage facility near Lublin. Somebody also took this picture a few days ago of T-72s being transported east on a Polish highway. May they find the thieves!"

Again, this is a rumour. What's more: what we see in the photo are BWP-1 infantry fighting vehicles, and not T-72 tanks.

Thus, and in view of the information that we have just reviewed, what we have so far about the alleged shipment of Polish T-72 tanks to Ukraine are unconfirmed information and rumours. Neither the Polish government nor the Ukrainian government have confirmed these reports.

On the other hand, it is unlikely that 100 Polish T-72 tanks will be sent to Ukraine and no one will see them. The most logical thing would be to send them by train, since it is a heavy load and the railway would be the most discreet option (remember that the roads that connect Ukraine with Poland are frequented by numerous Ukrainian refugees fleeing their country and by Poles who come to the border to help them). But even if those tanks were shipped by train, it would be very likely that someone would see and photograph them as they passed by.

I will continue to inform you of the information that there is on this matter, always trying to verify the sources. I don't like to fuel rumours.