Certainlygreenmark wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 5:01 pmThe link is behind a paywall. Can you copy/paste or summarise?Archangel wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 4:52 pmNot sure why Germany are so reluctant to supply weapons to Ukraine. Been like that since the start
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/01/20 ... raine-news
BERLIN — Western defense officials on Friday failed to reach an agreement on exporting German-made battle tanks to Ukraine, setting back Ukraine’s hopes of quickly getting a weapon it sees as crucial to its defense against an expected new Russian offensive.
At the end of the U.S.-led meeting of Ukraine’s allies at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, the U.S. defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, told reporters that the meeting had come at a “decisive moment” for Ukraine and said that those gathered had focused on providing air defense, armor and training for Ukraine.
But hopes had been high that the officials would announce a deal to send Germany’s Leopard 2 main battle tank to the battlefield, or at least to allow other countries with those tanks to send them to Ukraine. Officials from Germany and the United States, in particular, have been negotiating unsuccessfully on the matter for days.
Mr. Austin said that attendees at the meeting were “pushing hard” to meet Ukraine’s needs for tanks and armored vehicles.
When asked about whether officials had discussed the provision of German-made tanks, Mr. Austin referred a reporter to earlier remarks from Germany’s defense minister saying that a decision had not yet been taken. And in terms of whether the U.S. would provide its own M1 Abrams tanks, Mr. Austin said, “I don’t have any announcements to make.”
The lack of agreement was certain to disappoint many in Ukraine, whose president, Volodymyr Zelensky, earlier had explicitly appealed to those gathered to send tanks.
“Hundreds of thank-yous are not hundreds of tanks,” he said via live video. “All of us can use thousands of words in discussions, but I cannot use words instead of guns.”
Germany has been reluctant to send in some of its Leopard 2 tanks without Washington’s delivering at least a token number of its Abrams tanks, although Germany’s new defense minister, Boris Pistorius, said at a break during the meetings that the debate was not so clear-cut.
Many allies in Europe had been publicly piling pressure on Germany to allow other nations to re-export their own Leopard tanks to Ukraine. Because the tanks are German-made, approval from Berlin is required to transfer the vehicles to another country.
No agreement was made on that either, Mr. Pistorius said during a break in negotiations earlier in the day.
“There is no unified consensus,” he told reporters. “The impression that has occasionally been created that there is a united coalition and that Germany is standing in the way is wrong.”
Some German lawmakers said privately this week that even other countries that have expressed a desire to send their Leopards remain reluctant to request re-export licenses until all European partners — including Germany — agree to send tanks. There are concerns Russia might see the move as an escalation, and they want a united front so that Moscow cannot target certain countries.
Mr. Pistorius said there was no timeline for a deal on tanks, saying it could take between a day and weeks. “None of us can say today when a decision will be made and what the decision will be on the Leopard tanks,” he said during the break.
But in a sign that some movement is anticipated, the defense minister said he had ordered his ministry to start an inventory of Germany’s Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 tanks and to prepare for training Ukrainian soldiers.
“This is not to prejudice the outcome,” he said. “It’s to prepare for a day that will possibly come, at which point we would be able to act immediately and deliver the support within a very short period of time.”
He said he would welcome other European countries who own Leopards starting the same preparations.
