The German-brand Leopard battle tanks that Ukraine wanted and that Germany was reluctant to send finally have an expedited path to the country that for eleven months has been waging a bloody war against the Russian invaders.
The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, officially confirmed yesterday in the Bundestag (lower house of Parliament) his government's decision to make Leopard 2 tanks available to Kyiv, and announced that Germany will coordinate the supply of these tanks by other countries that own them, that they will be authorized to make deliveries, a requirement provided for in German regulations.
Germany thus clears the way for Europe to send dozens of Leopard battle tanks to Volodymyr Zelensky which, together with the heavy tanks of other types promised by the United States and the United Kingdom, could mean a turning point in the war. Scholz's announcement drew immediate ire from Moscow.
In his speech at the Bundestag, Scholz warned that military support for Ukraine must be done avoiding an escalation with Moscow that directly confronts Russia and NATO. “Germany will always respond when it comes to supporting Ukraine; but at the same time we must avoid an escalation of the war into a war between Russia and NATO, and we will always keep this principle in mind,” Scholz told deputies.
In the incipient coalition of the Leopard 2 – the current model that Ukraine needs – there are currently, apart from Germany, at least eight other countries with varying degrees of involvement: Poland, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Norway and Canada. . The first German consignment will be 14 cars, that is, a company; It is the same number that Poland wants to send, the only country that has formalized the request for official authorization of re-exports to the Scholz government.
The goal of this coalition is to “quickly assemble two Leopard 2 tank battalions; Germany, in a first step, will make available fourteen Leopard 2 A6s from the stocks of the Bundeswehr [armed forces]”, the government spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, specified in the morning. In the Bundeswehr, a battalion consists of 44 tanks, so technically two battalions would have 88.
Following the official announcement yesterday in Washington by US President Joe Biden that his country will send 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, and following the UK's promise to dispatch 14 of its Challenger 2 tanks, the sum of Western heavy main battle tanks for the Ukrainian army, including the plausible number of 88 Leopards, would total 133 units.
Another question is when Kyiv will receive all these tanks, if the allies ever muster such a number. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said the first German Leopards could be rolling on Ukrainian soil within three months. Germany will instruct the Ukrainian military in its handling – it will begin to do so no later than the beginning of February in German territory – and already on Tuesday Pistorius had recommended that other countries with Leopard also provide instruction.
The required learning period is between six and eight weeks for this 60-ton main battle tank, manned by four soldiers and equipped with a cannon that can hit targets 5 kilometers away, two machine guns and a smoke grenade launcher. . The Leopard 2 advances at relative speed (70 km/h) through the worst terrain, can cross flooded areas and rivers up to 4 meters deep, and has a range of 500 kilometers.
Germany now gives its approval to the surrender, after having maintained the veto even last Friday in the decisive meeting of allies at the US base of Ramstein, in German territory, which caused considerable damage to its image abroad.
In the Bundestag yesterday, Chancellor Scholz defended the actions of his government, which for weeks resisted the supply of these heavy tanks despite intense international pressure, arguing that it was not appropriate for Germany to act alone. "It was correct and it is correct that we did not get carried away, but that we have had the close cooperation [of the allies] and we will continue like this," he said before the chamber, in a question session that was previously scheduled.
This decision represents a new qualitative leap in the German position on the shipment of nationally manufactured weapons abroad after the first fundamental turnaround announced at the end of February 2022, three days after the start of the Russian invasion. Then, in an extraordinary session in the Bundestag, Scholz spoke of the Zeitenwende (turning point) for Vladimir Putin's aggression and announced, among other measures, the end of the decades-long German approach of not supplying countries at war with weapons, which was a political heritage in democracy resulting from the Nazi atrocities in World War II.
Some are now talking about Panzerwende, as the shipment of heavy weapons such as battle tanks materializes, which are no longer defensive weapons such as anti-aircraft missiles or armored vehicles of another less robust type, but material suitable for the offensive.
Scholz explained to the deputies that he had spoken by telephone with the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, who later declared himself “sincerely grateful” for the Berlin decision. “The important thing is that this is just the beginning; we need hundreds of tanks, ”his chief of staff Andriy Yermak said on Telegram.
The commanders of the Ukrainian army believe that Western heavy battle tanks will be key in a war that in recent weeks has entered a bloody stalemate. Kyiv admitted yesterday that his troops had had to withdraw from Soledar, a small town that Russia claimed to have captured more than a week ago, its biggest achievement in half a year. Soledar is near Bakhmut, the largest city that has been under heavy Russian attack for weeks.
"At a critical moment in Russia's war, [tanks] can help Ukraine defend itself, win and prevail as an independent nation," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg congratulated himself. French President Emmanuel Macron applauded the German plan, having said in Paris on Sunday that it "does not rule out" sending Leclerc tanks. But France's position so far has not gone beyond that.
