How a parts shortage and corporate infighting hamper efforts to repair Ukraine's Leopard tanks

While Allied governments congratulated themselves last spring for cutting deals to get donated tanks to Ukraine, one defence expert in the United Kingdom said the hard work of keeping those armoured vehicles in the field under wartime conditions is just beginning. "It's not a matter of where they've been delivered. It's a matter [of] they are being used and they need to be looked after," said Trevor Taylor of the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based defence and security think-tank. He said allied nations should have anticipated the fight over intellectual property. "Companies like to have as much to say as possible over how those vehicles are looked after," said Taylor, adding that defence contractors also have a vested interest — economic and legal — in how their products are used. In very simple terms, you know, when you buy a new car, if you don't get it serviced at the garage of the facility of the manufacturer, then your warranty disappears. It's that, on a bigger scale."