Germany wants to deliver tanks to Ukraine: The reactions

Well, yes: Germany wants to deliver Marder armored personnel carriers and a Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine. This was announced by government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit on Thursday evening. Chancellor Olaf Scholz and US Prime Minister Joe Biden had previously spoken on the phone.

Already in December last year it became known that the USA would deliver a Patriot anti-aircraft missile battery. France announced on Wednesday that it would deliver an unspecified number of AMX-10 RC “light battle tanks”. With this announcement, Macron had probably taken the German government by surprise. Germany followed suit on Thursday evening. The announcement met with a positive response from most German and international government officials.

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) and Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) welcomed the decision. Habeck said in a press release: “Since the beginning of the war, we have increasingly expanded our support in cooperation with our partners. It is logical that we also take this step.” Lindner wrote on Twitter: “Ukraine’s staying power must remain greater than Putin’s cruelty.”

Ukrainian President Zelensky wrote on Twitter on Thursday evening: «Thank you [dem] Chancellor for the decision to deliver a Patriot anti-aircraft missile battery to Ukraine.” Germany is making an important contribution, according to Selenski. The Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany, Olexi Makejev, also thanked him via Twitter.

Hofreiter: Deliveries are late

Ukrainian government representatives had repeatedly vehemently demanded tank deliveries from Germany. For the Green politician Anton Hofreiter, the deliveries are too late. He told the ARD “Morgenmagazin” on Friday: “By the time the Ukrainians are trained on the tanks, that is, by the time the marten is in action, the war will have been over for a year.”

Hofreiter does not accept the argument that one did not want to go it alone. One can also show leadership, as France has done, and one can only hope that France will now continue to lead the way, Hofreiter said.

The Christian Democratic politician Armin Laschet sees it differently. The chancellor candidate of the Union parties in the 2021 federal election would have liked a joint Franco-German announcement. On Twitter he asked: “Why don’t Germany and France act together on the same day with a common European message?”

Demands for the Leopard main battle tank

But why is the German announcement coming now? The German military expert Carlo Masala speculated on Thursday evening in the “Heute-Journal” that the combination of the current Russian missile war against the Ukrainian civilian infrastructure and Putin’s unwillingness to negotiate peace could have been the trigger for the decision. About the current announcement, Masala said: «I think a taboo has been broken. This taboo means that we are now also discussing the question of real main battle tanks like the Leopard 2.”

The Left Party is likely to see the decision critically. Even before the announcement on Thursday evening, the managing director of the left-wing parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Jan Korte, let it be known that he saw Scholz as driven by the FDP politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, who repeatedly demanded more arms deliveries to Ukraine. “Months ago, it was correct, also with a view to a possible expansion of the conflict, not to deliver any battle tanks, and that’s the case today,” Korte wrote on Twitter on Thursday afternoon.

Strack-Zimmermann himself welcomes the decision and immediately requested delivery of the Leopard main battle tank.

Reactions from Russian government officials to the German announcement were not yet available on Friday morning.