Berlin In view of the ongoing fighting in eastern Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) is again confronted with demands to deliver more and faster weapons to the country attacked by Russia. “The Chancellor and his party are doing just as much for Ukraine as is necessary to counter international pressure,” military expert Gustav Gressel from the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) think tank told Handelsblatt.
Large parts of the SPD are afraid of pictures showing Russian troops being beaten with German weapons. “That’s why the government is looking for all sorts of excuses, which gradually disappear into thin air,” says the expert. Gressel refers to statements by the parliamentary state secretary in the Ministry of Defense, Siemtje Möller (SPD).
This had explained on ZDF that Germany had not yet delivered any armored personnel carriers or battle tanks to Ukraine and was thus adhering to an agreement among the NATO allies. In the meantime, the ministry has made it clear that there is no formal NATO decision of this kind, but that the Allies have been closely coordinated and that no Western-style armored personnel carriers or main battle tanks have been delivered to Ukraine to date.
However, this is debatable. Thus, several nations have supplied M113 tanks. The Ministry of Defense classifies these as armored personnel carriers and casualty transporters.
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According to Gressel, however, they were also used as infantry fighting vehicles during the Cold War, for example by the Italians and the Dutch. The ECFR expert therefore has little understanding that the decommissioned Marder armored personnel carriers or Leopard 1 main battle tanks from industry stocks are not being delivered to Ukraine.
Scholz wants to avoid escalation
The Russian invasion troops continued their offensive there on Thursday. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, they attacked different parts of the frontline in the east of the country and attacked infrastructure with planes and rockets across the country.
Chancellor Scholz said at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had missed all of his strategic goals and emphasized that the Federal Republic was delivering weapons to a war zone for the first time in its history. Putin will only seriously negotiate peace if he cannot break Ukraine’s defenses.
However, Scholz also emphasized that everything must be avoided that could lead to an escalation of the war with the nuclear power Russia. That is why Germany, in agreement with the allies, is not supplying any heavy battle tanks.
So far, the federal government does not want to deliver weapons of this type to Ukraine, although the industry has numerous decommissioned vehicles in its inventory.
(Photo: dpa)
Gressel thinks that’s an excuse. It is true that no Western-made Leclerc, Challenger or Abrams main battle tanks have been delivered to Ukraine so far. The main reason for this is that France and Great Britain are still using the tanks and have long since exported old stock.
The Americans still have Abrams in stock, but the tank is a logistical nightmare and consumes a lot of fuel, for example. “In addition, the Americans have signaled to Putin that they reserve the right to supply such weapons in case Russia escalates the war further.”
Ring exchange problems
The defense policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, Wolfgang Hellmich, reiterated the position of Scholz and his party that an escalation of the war, for example through the use of chemical or nuclear weapons, must be avoided at all costs. “But if the Americans still have potential for escalation when it comes to arms deliveries, then perhaps the other NATO allies should do the same,” he said.
However, things are not going well with the exchange of rings, which Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) often invokes. The idea is that eastern NATO countries will hand over Soviet-era weapons to Ukraine and receive replacements from western allies. Poland’s President Andrzej Duda has just accused Berlin of “breach of word” in this context.
>> Read here: Poland accuses Germany of “breach of word” on tank deliveries – that’s behind it
According to government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit, Poland wanted state-of-the-art Leopard 2A7 tanks to replace the T-72 tanks delivered to Ukraine. However, these have only been introduced in small numbers by the Bundeswehr and are not “standing around at any truck stop or factory site”.
There are still Leopard tanks of older series, as they are now intended for the ring exchange with the Czech Republic, but only in limited numbers. That’s what the government in Warsaw was told.
The chairwoman of the defense committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP), then accused the federal government of not communicating clearly enough with the partner countries. “It must not be that at the end of the war the world perceives Germany as a complete brakeman and loser just because we are not able to organize and communicate,” she told the dpa agency.
According to Gressel, shortly after the start of the war, Eastern European countries such as Bulgaria expressed interest in Marder infantry fighting vehicles, which were offered by the Rheinmetall armaments group. In return, the countries wanted to supply BMP-type armored personnel carriers to Ukraine. Even then, “nothing has happened yet”.
More on this: Interview with conflict researcher Andreas Hasenclever: “Russia is vulnerable in many places in the world”