Next week, Ukraine will receive its first Skyranger 35 anti-aircraft systems. The management of the German company Rheinmetall promised to deliver the first anti-aircraft guns of this type to Ukraine by the end of 2025, and they kept their word. The first Skyranger 35 anti-aircraft guns, mounted on Leopard 1 tank chassis, are expected to be defending Ukrainian skies as early as next week.
This was announced by Oliver Hoffmann, head of press and public relations at Rheinmetall.
The Skyranger 35 is an anti-aircraft gun designed to destroy drones. There are also known cases of it shooting down cruise missiles. In fact, the chassis is well known to the Ukrainian military. The Armed Forces of Ukraine use both the Leopard 1 tank itself and other vehicles based on its chassis. These are engineering vehicles, bridge layers, and Gepard anti-aircraft guns. The success of the latter has drawn attention to this class of air defense systems.
The number of systems ordered is unknown, but the contract is worth hundreds of millions of euros. It was paid for by one of the European countries using frozen Russian assets.
Moreover, the German Bundeswehr itself intends to order hundreds of such systems from Rheinmetall, which have proven themselves effective in modern warfare.
