by From our correspondents in Washington and Berlin, Viviana Mazza and Paolo Valentino
The US President calls four European heads of state and government and thanks Rome. Scholz confirms 14 Leopards, but specifies: “A decision that had to be weighed up”
The United States will send 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine “in coordination” with Germany, which will send the Leopards. “Putin thought we were breaking up, he was wrong. America is united and so is the world as we approach the anniversary of the start of the war,” President Joe Biden said yesterday, stressing that he called four European leaders ahead of the announcement: Germany’s Olaf Scholz, France’s Emmanuel Macron, den Briton Rishi Sunak and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
In recent weeks Allied unity had been tested by the Panzer question, with Berlin refusing to send its own unless the Americans did the same. At the Pentagon, the Abrams were considered too complex and expensive (for the type of fuel and maintenance). When asked if Berlin had “forced” Washington to change his mind, Biden replied with a laugh at the press conference: “You didn’t force me to change my mind. We wanted to make sure we act together.” Eventually, after dozens of talks between National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and his German counterpart Jens Plötner, Pentagon Lloyd Austin, CIA Director William Burns, Scholz Chief of Staff Wolfgang Schmidt (and the Ukrainians ) a compromise: the 31 Abrams, the equivalent of a battalion, will be bought (not taken from stocks) and it will take “many months”, while the German tanks are due to arrive in Kyiv at the end of March for the spring offensive. Berlin initially promised 14, to to which would be added the Leopards arriving via other European countries, i.e. two battalions in all, i.e. a tank number between 84 and 110. Biden also mentioned the dispatch of British Challenger 2, French Amx-10 tank vehicles and the “artillery supply” from Italy.
It may not be the 300 tanks and 600 armored vehicles demanded by General Valeriy Saluzhnyi, but it is an important symbolic victory for Kyiv, which also sees renewed confirmation of the West’s long-term commitment (on Zelenskyi’s birthday). The tanks will be used to retake areas taken from the Russians, but Biden wanted to stress that there is “no offensive threat” in Moscow; They serve to “help the Ukrainians defend their country. If Putin’s troops returned to Russia, the war would end today.” It is clear that allies are less concerned about the risks of escalation. “We have no indication that Putin intends to use tactical or other nuclear weapons,” he said White House spokesman John Kirby yesterday.
In Berlin, Scholz treated himself to a winning lap. The Chancellor confirmed the historic decision to send the Leopards to Ukraine and authorized the other European countries that have agreed (Poland, Finland, Denmark were joined by Holland and Spain yesterday) to do the same and asserted his election and the way she was chosen matured. We are right not to be tempted to act in close cooperation with our allies – said Scholz – and it was right and intentional that our government came to this decision step by step, because this is the only way to guarantee security for Europe and Germany in such a dangerous situation”. According to the Chancellor, cooperation and consensus are the main ways “that can prevent the conflict from escalating and spreading”.
After moving past the silence and hesitation of the past few weeks, as he faced criticism both from the outside – notably from Polish and Ukrainian leaders – and from his Green and Liberal allies, Scholz has sought to regain the leadership he had promised Germans at his Wahl: «I say to the concerned citizens: trust me, trust the federal government. We will expand our support for Ukraine and make it possible without increasing the risks for Germany in the wrong direction.”
But in a sort of anticipation of new and future controversies, Scholz has also drawn a red line: Germany will not send fighter jets or ground forces to Ukraine either now or in the future. The demand for fighter jets was invoked by Zelenskyy yesterday along with that for long-range missiles.
As expected, Moscow reacted harshly through the ambassador in Berlin Sergei Nechaev. According to the diplomat, Germany is giving up its “historical responsibility towards Russia for the terrible crimes committed by the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War”. The decision to ship the Leopards to Kyiv is “extremely dangerous” as it “takes the conflict to a new level of confrontation” and irreparably damages the already poor state of relations between the two countries.
January 25, 2023 (change January 25, 2023 | 22:45)
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