Caymans Post

A world within. A state apart.
Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

France and Poland push Germany to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine

France and Poland push Germany to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine

If Germany relents and sends Leopard tanks, it is likely several other EU countries will too.

Less than a week after Germany finally agreed to supply Ukraine with Marder infantry fighting vehicles, pressure is building on Berlin to step it up and send modern battle tanks.

France and Poland are pushing the EU’s biggest economy to equip Kyiv with its powerful Leopard 2 tank, while Britain is reportedly considering sending about a dozen of its Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine. If Britain did so, this would make it significantly harder for Berlin to hide behind its current argument that it does not want to act alone in sending heavy weaponry.

Almost a year into Russia’s war against Ukraine, Western military analysts fear Moscow will launch a new offensive in the coming weeks or months, seizing on the depletion of Kyiv’s ammunition reserves.

Supplying modern Western tanks such as the Leopard 2 would be a big boost for Ukraine’s military, as Kyiv’s allies have so far only been willing to send older Soviet-era tanks that had still been in the stocks of Eastern European countries, as well as other weapon systems such as howitzers and air defenses.

A French official told POLITICO that Paris is turning the screws on Germany in the hope of extracting an agreement from Berlin to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine ahead of a Franco-German summit on January 22, the 60th anniversary of the Élysée partnership treaty between the two nations.

Similar pressure is coming from Poland, which wants to form a broad coalition among Western partners to jointly hand over Leopards to Ukraine. “We encourage other countries to form a broad coalition for the transfer of more modern tanks to Ukraine, such as Leopard tanks,” Deputy Foreign Minister Paweł Jabłoński told Polish public radio on Monday.

Germany, Spain, Poland, Greece, Denmark and Finland are among numerous countries already using the approximately 60-ton Leopard 2, which is equipped with a 120-millimeter cannon as well as a state-of-the-art defense system and armor. This would allow allies to jointly organize delivery of both the tanks and required ammunition, and team up on the required maintenance and repair.

“The Ukrainians really want the Leopards because there are lots in stock across Europe,” said the French official, who is familiar with the tank discussions.

However, since the Leopards are being produced by Munich-based defense company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, their delivery to Ukraine demands a re-export authorization by the country of origin, Germany — meaning that international pressure is now concentrating on Berlin.

“Poland can hand over Leopards only in a coalition of countries,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told reporters on Saturday, adding that talks with other countries on forming such an alliance are ongoing.

“I talked about it with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz a couple of weeks ago in Brussels, and I think we may know more about it in the next few days,” Morawiecki added.


German line of defense


Asked about demands by partners such as Poland to form such a tank alliance, a German government spokesperson said Monday he was “not aware of any such requests at the moment,” but stressed that “we constantly reassess the situation and then derive our closely internationally coordinated decisions from it.”

Just last Thursday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and U.S. President Joe Biden announced in a joint statement that their countries would send infantry fighting vehicles — up to 40 German Marders and around 50 American Bradleys — to Ukraine; one day after French President Emmanuel Macron had rushed ahead by announcing the delivery of French AMX-10 RC armored fighting vehicles.

French President Emmanuel Macron has rushed ahead by announcing the delivery of French AMX-10 RC armored fighting vehicles


While German officials insist the announcement resulted from close coordination, many factors — such as Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht saying just weeks earlier that it would be impossible for Germany to send any Marders to Ukraine, as it needed them for its own military — suggest that Berlin took the decision reluctantly and only amid growing international pressure.

That suggestion was supported by the French official who, speaking on the condition of the anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said that “the aim” of Macron’s announcement last week to hand over the French armored fighting vehicles “was to break the taboo [of sending Western tanks to Ukraine], so that the Germans start moving.”
“There’s a complicity

between Macron and Zelenskyy, and this was somewhat staged to lift the U.S. and Germany reluctance [on sending tanks],” the official said.

Ukraine has also asked Paris to send French Leclerc battle tanks to Ukraine, a request that is currently being examined by the French authorities. French officials caution, however, that Leclerc tanks are no longer in production, raising questions over maintenance and the provision of spare parts — problems that the Leopards, due to their wide availability in many nations and their continued production, do not face.

Still, France would be willing to deploy its Leclerc tanks to NATO allies that send some of their own Leopard tanks to Ukraine, in order to fill gaps, an official in Paris said.

One official in Berlin said that a recent notable diplomatic success by Scholz, namely getting China and a broader coalition of other G20 countries to sign a statement urging Russia not to use nuclear weapons, has alleviated concerns in Berlin that the delivery of more Western military equipment to Ukraine could lead to a third world war.

However, the German government spokesperson stressed Monday that one of Berlin’s key goals remained avoiding becoming an active party to the war, and added that there was “no automatism” that would make the delivery of Leopards “the next logical step” following the decision to send Marder tanks.

Meanwhile, German news outlet Der Spiegel reported Monday that the U.K. government is considering supplying about a dozen Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine, which would make it the first country to support Kyiv with Western main battle tanks.
London has

already announced the possible delivery to partners “in a nonbinding manner,” Der Spiegel wrote, adding that the decision will probably only be made official at a planned meeting of Western defense officials at the Ramstein military base in Germany on January 20.

The U.K. defense ministry neither denied nor confirmed the report, with a spokesperson saying: “The government has committed to match or exceed last year’s funding for military aid to Ukraine in 2023, and we will continue to build on recent donations with training and further gifting of equipment.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

Caymans Post
0:00
0:00
Close
Paper straws found to contain long-lasting and potentially toxic chemicals - study
FTX's Bankman-Fried headed for jail after judge revokes bail
Blackrock gets half a trillion dollar deal to rebuild Ukraine
Israel: Unprecedented Civil Disobedience Looms as IDF Reservists Protest Judiciary Reform
America's First New Nuclear Reactor in Nearly Seven Years Begins Operations
Southeast Asia moves closer to economic unity with new regional payments system
Today Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met in Georgetown with Russian Moscow Mayor's Wife Yelena Baturina who later paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in so called “consulting fees”
Singapore Carries Out First Execution of a Woman in Two Decades Amid Capital Punishment Debate
Google testing journalism AI. We are doing it already 2 years, and without Google biased propoganda and manipulated censorship
Unlike illegal imigrants coming by boats - US Citizens Will Need Visa To Travel To Europe in 2024
Musk announces Twitter name and logo change to X.com
The politician and the journalist lost control and started fighting on live broadcast.
The future of sports
Unveiling the Black Hole: The Mysterious Fate of EU's Aid to Ukraine
Farewell to a Music Titan: Tony Bennett, Renowned Jazz and Pop Vocalist, Passes Away at 96
Alarming Behavior Among Florida's Sharks Raises Concerns Over Possible Cocaine Exposure
Transgender Exclusion in Miss Italy Stirs Controversy Amidst Changing Global Beauty Pageant Landscape
Joe Biden admitted, in his own words, that he delivered what he promised in exchange for the $10 million bribe he received from the Ukraine Oil Company.
TikTok Takes On Spotify And Apple, Launches Own Music Service
Global Trend: Using Anti-Fake News Laws as Censorship Tools - A Deep Dive into Tunisia's Scenario
Arresting Putin During South African Visit Would Equate to War Declaration, Asserts President Ramaphosa
Hacktivist Collective Anonymous Launches 'Project Disclosure' to Unearth Information on UFOs and ETIs
Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali
Server Arrested For Theft After Refusing To Pay A Table's $100 Restaurant Bill When They Dined & Dashed
The Changing Face of Europe: How Mass Migration is Reshaping the Political Landscape
China Urges EU to Clarify Strategic Partnership Amid Trade Tensions
Europe is boiling: Extreme Weather Conditions Prevail Across the Continent
The Last Pour: Anchor Brewing, America's Pioneer Craft Brewer, Closes After 127 Years
Democracy not: EU's Digital Commissioner Considers Shutting Down Social Media Platforms Amid Social Unrest
Sarah Silverman and Renowned Authors Lodge Copyright Infringement Case Against OpenAI and Meta
Italian Court's Controversial Ruling on Sexual Harassment Ignites Uproar
Why Do Tech Executives Support Kennedy Jr.?
The New York Times Announces Closure of its Sports Section in Favor of The Athletic
BBC Anchor Huw Edwards Hospitalized Amid Child Sex Abuse Allegations, Family Confirms
Florida Attorney General requests Meta CEO's testimony on company's platforms' alleged facilitation of illicit activities
The Distorted Mirror of actual approval ratings: Examining the True Threat to Democracy Beyond the Persona of Putin
40,000 child slaves in Congo are forced to work in cobalt mines so we can drive electric cars.
BBC Personalities Rebuke Accusations Amidst Scandal Involving Teen Exploitation
A Swift Disappointment: Why Is Taylor Swift Bypassing Canada on Her Global Tour?
Historic Moment: Edgars Rinkevics, EU's First Openly Gay Head of State, Takes Office as Latvia's President
Bye bye democracy, human rights, freedom: French Cops Can Now Secretly Activate Phone Cameras, Microphones And GPS To Spy On Citizens
The Poor Man With Money, Mark Zuckerberg, Unveils Twitter Replica with Heavy-Handed Censorship: A New Low in Innovation?
Unilever Plummets in a $2.5 Billion Free Fall, to begin with: A Reckoning for Misuse of Corporate Power Against National Interest
Beyond the Blame Game: The Need for Nuanced Perspectives on America's Complex Reality
Twitter Targets Meta: A Tangle of Trade Secrets and Copycat Culture
The Double-Edged Sword of AI: AI is linked to layoffs in industry that created it
US Sanctions on China's Chip Industry Backfire, Prompting Self-Inflicted Blowback
Meta Copy Twitter with New App, Threads
The New French Revolution
BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Application Refiled, Naming Coinbase as ‘Surveillance-Sharing’ Partner
×