Germany won’t stand in the way if Poland wants to send its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, Berlin’s foreign minister says, in a possible breakthrough for Kyiv, which wants the tanks for its fight against Russia’s invasion.
Ukrainian officials have been calling on Western allies to supply them with the modern German-made tanks for months, but Berlin has held back from sending them or allowing other NATO countries to do so.
Asked what would happen if Poland went ahead and sent its Leopard 2 tanks without German approval, Annalena Baerbock said on France’s LCI TV: “For the moment the question has not been asked, but if we were asked we would not stand in the way.”
Her remarks appeared to go further than German Chancellor Olaf Scholz‘s comments at a summit in Paris earlier on Sunday that all decisions on weapons deliveries would be made in co-ordination with allies including the United States.
Germany has been under heavy pressure to let Leopards go to Ukraine. But Scholz’s Social Democrat party is traditionally sceptical of military involvements and wary of sudden moves that could cause Moscow to further escalate.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Sunday that he expected a decision soon on the tanks, though he kept up a note of caution.
Pistorius told ARD TV that Germany would not make a hasty decision because the government had many factors to consider, including consequences at home for the security of the German population.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy repeated his longstanding plea for the tanks at his Sunday meeting with former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson who was visiting Kyiv.
“We need more weapons: tanks, aircraft, long-range missiles,” Zelenskiy said.
Ukraine says the heavily armoured Western battle tanks would give the Ukrainian ground troops more mobility and protection against a new Russian offensive that Kyiv expects soon. It would also help Ukraine retake some of the territory that has fallen to Russia.
After the Paris summit, Scholz told a news conference that all weapons deliveries to Ukraine had taken place in close co-ordination with Western partners. “We will do that in the future,” he said.
Speaking at the same news conference, French President Emmanuel Macron said he did not rule out the possibility of sending Leclerc tanks to Ukraine.
Macron said that sending tanks must not escalate the situation, must take into account the time to train Ukrainians to be effective, and must not endanger France’s own security.
“Regarding the Leclercs, I asked the army minister to work on it, but nothing has been ruled out,” Macron said, adding that the move would have to be co-ordinated with allies such as Germany in the coming days and weeks.
German sources have told Reuters they would allow German-made tanks to be sent to Ukraine to help its defence against Russia if the United States agrees to send its own tanks. But US officials have said the Biden administration is not poised to send its own tanks, including the M1 Abrams.
Earlier on Sunday, the Speaker of the lower house of Russia’s parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, said governments giving more powerful weapons to Ukraine could cause a “global tragedy that would destroy their countries”.
“Supplies of offensive weapons to the Kyiv regime would lead to a global catastrophe,” he said.
“If Washington and NATO supply weapons that would be used for striking peaceful cities and making attempts to seize our territory as they threaten to do, it would trigger a retaliation with more powerful weapons.”
Reuters and AP
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