“We were the first country to send tanks to Kyiv…”

Facts

In a post on X, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak claimed that the UK was “the first country to send tanks to Kyiv…”

We were the first country to send tanks to Kyiv, now more than 10 others have followed.

We were the first country to agree to train Ukrainian pilots, now over a dozen others do too.

I say this to our allies, give @ZelenskyyUa the tools, the Ukranians will finish the job. pic.twitter.com/rtTlaqNdsr

— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) October 4, 2023

Neither the government nor the Conservative party has provided any evidence to support this statement.

In April 2022, the Czech Republic sent five T-72 tanks to Ukraine, making it the first NATO country to do so. 

The UK government did not announce it would send tanks to Ukraine until the 14th January 2023.

Sunak later amended his statement during a speech at a Conservative party conference the same day as his X post, instead saying that the UK was the first to send “Western battle tanks” to Kyiv. 

While Full Fact notes the UK “was arguably the first country to confirm it was sending Western tanks”, the 14 Challenger 2 tanks sent by the UK arrived on the 27th March, the same day tanks from Germany and Portugal also arrived. 

Verdict

Sunak misled his 2.3 million X followers. At the time of writing [31/01/24], he has allowed his inaccurate post to remain online. We share below the community note now attached to his X post.

We emailed Rishi Sunak’s office and Downing Street offering them the chance to respond. The email was received, but no reply.