BERLIN (Portal) – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Monday he remained convinced of the need to coordinate arms sales to Ukraine with allies amid mounting pressure on Berlin to send Kyiv its Leopard 2 main battle tanks.
Germany announced last week that it would provide Ukraine with Marder infantry fighting vehicles to repel Russian forces. The announcement came on the same day that the United States pledged Bradley Fighting Vehicles and a day after a similar announcement from France.
Scholz, who has often stressed the importance of not escalating the conflict in Ukraine or giving Russia a reason to consider it a party to the war, said Western allies had “spent a long time preparing for this, discussing it and organize”.
Kyiv has also requested heavier vehicles like the Leopards, which would represent a significant increase in Western support to Ukraine.
“Germany will not go it alone,” he said at an event organized by his SPD at the start of the campaign for the Berlin state elections.
“Germany will always remain united with its friends and allies… Anything else would be irresponsible in such a dangerous situation.”
Germany has become one of Ukraine’s top military supporters in response to Russia’s invasion after last year breaking a taboo rooted in its bloody 20th-century history of sending arms into conflict zones.
But critics say Scholz and his ruling SPD are too slow-moving, waiting for allies to act first, rather than shouldering Germany’s responsibilities as Ukraine’s closest western power.
The SPD’s smaller coalition partners, the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats, have loudly called for increased military support for Ukraine.
Germany cannot rule out the delivery of Leopard tanks, heavier combat vehicles than the Marder, to support the Ukrainian armed forces in the future, Green Party economics minister Robert Habeck told ARD over the weekend.
Britain is considering supplying Ukraine with the British Army’s Challenger 2 main battle tank, Sky News reported on Monday, citing unnamed sources.
(Reporting by Sarah Marsh and Andreas Rinke; Editing by Alistair Bell)