Germany is ready to authorize Poland to send German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine if Warsaw makes such a request, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in an interview with the LCI channel.
“We must ensure that human lives are saved and the territory of Ukraine is liberated. If we are asked the question, we will not stand in the way,” he said. The interviewer even asked Baerbock if he heard correctly. “He heard correctly,” the minister confirmed in the joint interview with French counterpart Catherine Colonna.
Poland was the first to announce its intention to send the Leopard 2, which was supported by Finland, Lithuania and, less explicitly, by Canada. However, he said this depends on Berlin’s approval of the re-export permit and that it should be done within the framework of an international coalition.
Meanwhile, in view of the announcement by new German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius that the issue was being evaluated, the Polish government decided not to wait. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who previously said German consent was of “secondary importance”, said he was in talks with 15 countries to organize a “small coalition” to send the tanks, with or without Germany.
In the wake of the meeting of the Ramstein contact group, which brought together about five dozen allied countries on Friday, Ukraine’s defense minister Oleksei Reznikov said his country’s army would soon go to Poland to receive training in the aforementioned vehicles. fight.
In Paris, at the meeting between the leaders of France and Germany celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of the Élysée, Olaf Scholz was questioned again about Berlin’s indecisiveness about sending combat vehicles. “We haven’t delivered weapons to conflict zones for years. We’ve changed our position and will continue to do so. We do a lot, in concert with our allies. We’ve delivered howitzers, rocket launchers and very recently we’ve delivered light armored vehicles. Our support is very broad. I fear this war will last a long time, we will continue to help Ukraine, but we have a principle: we work together,” the German chancellor said, without giving a full answer.
The French president, whose country was the first to break the taboo against sending Western combat vehicles, announcing an undetermined number of AMX-10 tanks, was asked about the French Leclerc tanks, to which he said: “Nothing has been scrapped.” And then he said that a decision must meet three principles: “Do not escalate; that it can provide real and effective support to Ukraine, and not weaken our own defense capabilities.”
Source: DN
