Berlin promises quick decision on Leopard tanks
Under pressure for days, Germany on Tuesday cleared the way for a Ukraine-required permit for allied countries to supply Leopard heavy tanks, promising to respond “with due urgency” to Poland’s request in this regard.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said in Berlin on Tuesday that at a press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg he had “explicitly encouraged partner countries that have operational Leopard tanks to train Ukrainian armed forces on these tanks”.
The comments are a step forward in Germany’s position as Olaf Scholz’s government comes under increasing pressure to agree to Atlantic Alliance member states wanting to supply Leopard tanks to Ukraine.
So far, Finland and Poland have agreed to do so. Warsaw, which wants to form a “coalition of countries that will support Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks,” has officially made a corresponding request, the receipt of which was confirmed by Berlin on Tuesday. “We will process the request with the necessary urgency according to the planned procedure,” assured a spokesman for the federal government.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said he was hoping for a quick response “because Germans are hesitating, hesitating and acting in ways that are difficult to understand”. Meanwhile, the NATO chief welcomed the “clear message” from the new German defense minister, who has been in office for almost a week. Mr Stoltenberg reiterated the importance of supplying Kyiv with more heavy weapons and said he was “confident” that a solution for tanks would be found “soon”.
“Such deliveries will not bode well for Russian-German relations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday, judging that “it would leave indelible marks.”