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BERLIN/PARIS – Less than a week after Germany finally agreed to supply Ukraine with Marder infantry fighting vehicles, pressure is mounting for Berlin to step up and send modern main battle tanks.
France and Poland are urging the EU’s largest 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, it would make it much harder for Berlin to hide behind its current argument that it does not want to act alone in deploying heavy weapons.
Almost a year after Russia’s war against Ukraine began, Western military analysts fear that Moscow will launch a new offensive in the coming weeks or months to exploit the depletion of Kiev’s ammunition reserves.
The delivery of modern Western tanks such as the Leopard 2 would be a major boost for the Ukrainian military, as Kiev’s allies have so far only been willing to send older Soviet-era tanks still in the stocks of Eastern European countries, as well as other weapon systems such as howitzers and air defense.
A French official told POLITICO that Paris is turning the screws on Germany in hopes ahead of a January 22 Franco-German summit that will bring together 60 nations.
Similar pressure is coming from Poland, which wants to form a broad coalition of Western partners to jointly extradite 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 broadcaster on Monday.
Germany, Spain, Poland, Greece, Denmark and Finland are among the many countries already using the approximately 60-ton Leopard 2, which is armed with a 120mm gun and a state-of-the-art defense system and armor. This would allow the allies to jointly organize the supply of both the tanks and the necessary ammunition, and to join forces in the necessary maintenance and repairs.
“Ukrainians really want the Leopards because there are plenty 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 contractor Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, supplying them to Ukraine requires a re-export license from the country of origin, Germany — so international pressure is now focused on Berlin.
“Poland can only give up leopards in a coalition of countries,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told reporters on Saturday, adding that talks are underway with other countries on forming such an alliance.
“I spoke to Chancellor Olaf Scholz about this in Brussels a few weeks ago and I think we will know more about it in the next few days,” Morawiecki added.
German defense line
When asked about demands from partners like Poland to form such an armored alliance, a German government spokesman said on Monday that he was “currently not aware of such demands”, but emphasized that “we are constantly reassessing the situation and then deriving closely coordinated international decisions from it .”
Just last Thursday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and US 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; a day after French President Emmanuel Macron rushed ahead with the announcement of the delivery of French AMX-10 RC armored fighting vehicles.
French President Emmanuel Macron announced the delivery of French armored fighting vehicles AMX-10 RC | Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images
While German officials insist the announcement was the result of close voting, many factors – such as Defense Secretary Christine Lambrecht saying just weeks earlier that it was impossible for Germany to send Marders to Ukraine as it was supposed to be need its own military – Berlin made the decision reluctantly and only under increasing international pressure.
That suggestion was supported by the French official, who said on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter that “the goal” 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 can go.”
“There is complicity between Macron and Zelenskyy, and this was somewhat staged to break US and German reluctance [on sending tanks]’ said the officer.
Ukraine has also asked Paris to send French Leclerc main battle tanks to Ukraine, a request currently under consideration by French authorities. However, French officials warn that Leclerc tanks are no longer being produced, raising questions about maintenance and the availability of spare parts – problems that the Leopards do not face due to their wide availability in many countries and their continued production.
Still, France would be willing to use its Leclerc tanks with NATO allies, who are sending some of their own Leopard tanks to Ukraine to fill gaps, an official in Paris said.
An official in Berlin said that a notable diplomatic success by Scholz in getting China and a broader coalition of other G20 countries to sign a declaration urging Russia not to use nuclear weapons has eased concerns in Berlin over the delivery of more western military equipment spilled into Ukraine could lead to a third world war.
However, the German government spokesman stressed on Monday that avoiding an active war party remains one of Berlin’s most important goals, adding that there is “no automatism” that would make the delivery of Leopards “the next logical step” after the decision would send Marder tanks.
Meanwhile, German news agency Der Spiegel reported on Monday that the British 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 potential delivery to partners “non-bindingly,” Der Spiegel wrote, adding that the decision is unlikely to be made official until a scheduled January 20 meeting of Western defense officials at Ramstein military base in Germany.
The British Ministry of Defense has neither denied nor confirmed the report. A spokesman said: “The government has committed to match or exceed last year’s appropriations for military assistance to Ukraine in 2023 and we will continue to build on recent donations with training and further gifts of equipment.”
Esther Webber in London and Jan Cienski in Brussels contributed to the reporting.