Fears of a military escalation with Moscow and Berlin’s unwillingness to take the lead in the West have led Germany to block the shipment of tanks requested by Kiev, analysts interviewed by the AFP agency said.
Pressure on Olaf Scholz has increased this week, from Kiev to Davos and in several European capitals, but the German chancellor has yet to give the green light to send the ‘Leopard 2’ tanks to the Ukrainian battlefield.
The refusal angered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has already assured that he will “stop evil” with these tanks: “There are times when we should not hesitate,” the Ukrainian leader underlined at the Economic Forum in Davos.
For military experts, the “Leopard 2” will have a decisive impact on the Russian army.
“In terms of Western support for Ukraine so far, tanks are the missing piece of the puzzle”stressed, to AFP, Ed Arnold, of the British ‘think tank’ Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
Sending a hundred of these devices, which many European countries have, would have a significant impact, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) noted.
Countries like Poland or Finland, which are ready to deliver them to Kiev, must get Berlin’s approval, because they were built in that country.
“The impression of a hostile Germany is false”However, the new German defense minister, Boris Pistorius, assured on the sidelines of a meeting of Kiev allies at the US base in Germany Ramstein.
My impression is that the government [alemão] certainly wants to support Ukraine, but at the same time still fears that this will lead to an escalation by Russia”underlined Jana Puglierin, researcher at the European Council for International Relations.
Sudha David-Wilp, of the German think tank MarshallFund, told AFP that Germany and other European countries will worry “about malice and what Russia can do in terms of sabotage on the continent”.
In addition, Germany has been the scene of several cyber-attacks attributed to Russian services in recent years.
The Germans themselves are sharply divided about possible tank deliveries: 46% are in favour, 43% against, according to a recent poll by the public broadcaster ARD.
Scholz belongs to a political party – the Social Democratic Party (SPD) – that has long advocated a form of accommodation with Moscow that is difficult to break overnight.
But for Puglierin, this could also be a tactical stance of Angela Merkel’s successor.
“Americans call it ‘cooking the frog’ [boiling the frog, em inglês]. It’s about slowly increasing support for Ukraine, not provoking Russia too much.”creased.
For Jana Puglierin, Germany will finally authorize and probably even participate in these deliveries, noting that the same discussion took place over the Marder armored infantry fighting vehicles until Berlin agreed to deliver them in early January, in agreement with Washington and Paris.
The German government prefers to “come in line rather than take the lead,” David-Wilp said, out of “fear of leading.”
Puglierin added that the German government is “completely comfortable with the United States as the dominant power”.
This afternoon, after the meeting of the Contact Group for the Defense of Ukraine in Germany, the Ministry of National Defense indicated in a statement that Portugal will send to Ukraine another 14 M113 armored vehicles and eight high-capacity electric generators, which will be “on 532 tons of military material, lethal and non-lethal” delivered to the country.
Regarding the shipment of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, the ministry indicated that at the meeting in Ramstein “Portugal participated in a meeting convened by Ukraine and Poland, where the countries that have these resources were present”. Portugal has 37 Leopard tanks.
“At that meeting, the Minister of National Defense reiterated the offer of training in this type of combat vehicles and expressed the availability of the Portuguese government, in consultation with its partners, to find ways to support Ukraine with this capability”said the ministry.
The military offensive launched by Russia in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 has so far led to the flight of more than 14 million people — 6.5 million internally displaced persons and nearly eight million to European countries — according to the latest data from the UN, which classifies this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).
Source: DN
