MOSCOW, January 25. /TASS/. Modern Leopard tanks, which will be shipped to Ukraine, will be destroyed just like their predecessors, Tigers and Panthers, were destroyed during World War II, Russian Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Kolokoltsev said Wednesday.

According to the Minister, the descendants of those who liberated the world of Nazism preserve the historical memory of the crimes of Hitler’s forces and their henchmen - the Banderites - in Ukraine.

"They perfectly preserve the picture of Tigers and Panthers burning on Russian soil in the memory of the modern generation. They will remember burning modern Leopards as well," Kolokoltsev said.

The Minister underscored that, today "the North American masters of the Kiev leadership are no longer bothered by huge human losses, or by the glorification of Nazism, or the unprecedented corruption of their puppets."

"This is the price of the subservient readiness of the sellout Ukrainian elite to turn a once brotherly republic and a good neighbor to an outpost of infrastructure that is hostile to Russia, to turn our borders into an area of ‘controlled geopolitical instability’," he noted.

Earlier on Wednesday, the German government confirmed that it will ship 14 Leopard 2 tanks from the German stock and will authorize other states to re-export German-made tanks. According to German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, the first Leopard tanks may be shipped to Ukraine in approximately 3 to 4 months.