- Antoinette Radford
- BBC News
German Leopard 2 tanks were built to compete with the Russian T90 tanks
German Foreign Minister Anna Baerbock said she would not “get in the way” of Poland if it wanted to send German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
Ukraine is asking the West to send German-made tanks that would help it defeat Russia.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the BBC that Germany had the potential to “save the lives of many Ukrainian soldiers”.
But Germany did not officially agree to send these tanks, which makes German export law an obstacle to Poland and the sending of German armored vehicles to Kyiv.
Baerbock said on Sunday that Poland, which bought German tanks of this type, had not asked it for permission to export them to Ukraine.
“Until this moment, we have not been asked this question. But if asked, we will not stand in the way of achieving it,” she added, during an interview with LCI France television.
Mateusz Morawiecki, Poland’s prime minister, said his government would ask Berlin for permission. But he also stressed that Poland would send the tanks to Ukraine even if it did not get official permission from Germany.
Morawiecki said: “Even if we do not get approval in the end, we will deliver our tanks, we and other countries, to Ukraine, within the framework of a small coalition.”
Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said Germany would not prevent European countries from exporting Leopard tanks to Ukraine.
He added that discussions about supporting Ukraine should not only deal with the issue of tanks.
In an interview with the BBC on Monday, Ukraine’s foreign minister appealed to all countries willing to send Leopard 2s to Ukraine to apply “officially and immediately for permission from the German government to allow them to deliver these tanks to Ukraine”.
Kuleba said: “This step will clarify the situation, and we will know the position of Germany. It is something we need to implement immediately, and then everything will become clear.”
A German government spokesman said Monday that his country had not received any requests to authorize the delivery of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
Marcin Przydac, Foreign Affairs Adviser to the Polish President, said that the President welcomed Birbock’s statements, but he wants to confirm the German position on the lips of German Chancellor Olaf Schultz.
Nevertheless, Warsaw wants Berlin and NATO countries to send Leopard 2 tanks as well to Kyiv because government officials believe that 14 tanks of this type will have a limited impact on the Ukrainian combat capabilities.
The Leopard 2 was designed from the ground up to compete with the Russian T90 tanks used in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
There are about 2,000 tanks from the Leopard 2 in the world, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirms that 300 of them guarantee the defeat of Russia.
And many of Ukraine’s allies expressed their dissatisfaction with Germany’s position in light of its lack of inclination to agree to send this type of tank to Ukraine.
The regulations currently in force stipulate that Germany must impose sanctions on the re-export of its tanks by other countries such as Poland.
And after the summit that brought together fifty countries allied to Ukraine last Friday, there was no indication of Germany’s commitment to supplying Ukraine with this type of tanks or its intention to authorize other countries to send them to Kyiv from other countries. But Berlin denied in the context of its foreign minister’s statements that it stands in the way of re-exporting tanks from Poland or any other country to Ukraine.
In a joint statement issued last Saturday, the foreign ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania called on Germany to “supply Ukraine with Leopard tanks now.”
As long as the German chancellor has a tendency to distance Germany from involvement in military conflicts, he also previously expressed concern about the possible escalation of Russia against his country.
Schultz met French President Emmanuel Macron last weekend to stress the continuation of the two-state alliance in the post-war era.
France had pledged to send light tanks to Ukraine, and Macron suggested at a race time that France could send Leclerc heavy tanks to Kyiv as well.
Other countries have pledged to send tanks, including the United Kingdom, which is set to send 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine.