Germany declares it will give Ukraine Leopard 2 tanks.

German has announced that it will provide 14 Leopard 2A6 tanks for Ukraine’s war effort and has given partner nations the go-ahead to re-export additional combat tanks to Kyiv, dispelling concerns over delivering heavy weapons that Ukraine believes are essential to stopping the Russian assault.

The Zelenskiy government had requested war tanks, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz seemed hesitant to give them, which had recently alarmed western friends more and more.

The impasse, however, appeared to be broken by Washington’s alleged Tuesday agreement to deliver a sizable number of its own Abrams tanks to Kyiv in coordination with its European allies.

According to German media sources, Finland, Spain, and the Netherlands will also provide Leopard 2A6 tanks in addition to the German business. Leopard 2A4 tanks from Poland and Norway will make up a second battalion.

On Wednesday, just before noon local time, Berlin declared it will send a company of Leopard 2A6 tanks and grant the necessary permission for other European nations to supply the German-made equipment.

Scholz stated, “This decision is in accordance with our official policy to provide Ukraine with the best possible help. “We are coordinating our actions with other countries closely.”

“In Germany, we had to break and rule, and now we furnish the most weaponry, together with Great Britain,” he later told the Bundestag. Germany will always be a leader in supporting Ukraine, if we look at what we’ve decided to do so far.

The US has not yet made a public declaration regarding its anticipated delivery to Ukraine.

By suggesting that the military assistance to Ukraine would “burn like the rest,” the Kremlin has downplayed the role that Western tanks will play in defeating its forces in Ukraine.

The delivery of tanks to the Ukrainian army was described as a “failed plot” by Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov in talks to reporters on Wednesday.

The potential that this will add to the Ukrainian army is being overstated, Peskov told reporters. He continued, “These tanks will burn like the rest.” Simply put, “They are incredibly pricey.”

The three coalition partners of the German government and the main opposition party in the nation applauded news of the German decision, while the extreme right and far left criticized it.

The head of the Green party’s committee on European matters in the Bundestag, Anton Hofreiter, called the revelation that Leopard tanks would also be supplied from Germany to Ukraine “extremely good news.

” Hofreiter told RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland that Kyiv needed to be backed “until the Putin government realizes that dialogue are a better alternative than extending the war.”

The chief opponent in the German parliament, the conservative CDU/CSU party bloc, Florian Hahn, said further: “Chancellor Scholz and the SPD has now given up its absurd fight.”

Berlin’s ambiguous position on the battle tank issue had recently confused the German people as well as its western allies. Critics within Scholz’s own ruling coalition said that internal party strife had paralyzed his chancellory.

Some of the criticism changed to admiration following the Leopards’ statement. Die Zeit said that the SPD chancellor had succeeded in one of his main objectives, which was to send battle tanks only slightly behind the Americans.

According to those in his inner circle, he did this to lessen the possibility that Vladimir Putin would use German Leopard tanks as an excuse to attack Germany directly.

The far-right Alternative für Deutschland as well as Left party circles surrounding fiery lawmaker Sahra Wagenknecht criticized the Leopard announcement (AfD).

The former leader of Die Linke, who is rumored to be preparing to head a new breakaway group, called the shipment of war tanks “madness that could end in catastrophe.”

A friend of Wagenknecht’s named Sevim Dadelen tweeted that the declaration “prepared the door into a conflict” at Washington’s request.

Delivering Leopards, according to AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla, is “irresponsible and dangerous,” and “threatens to bring Germany directly into the war.”

Scholz’s SPD, particularly the leftist old guard who believes the Social Democratic party owes a due to a historically pacifist foreign policy agenda, mirrored some of the arguments of the far right and far left.

 

Before the shipment of the tanks was officially announced, veteran SPD MP Ralf Stegner posed the question, “What will happen next?” “Battle tanks are currently being delivered.

Which will we send out next: battleships or fighter jets? Are we going to discuss deploying troops at any point?