" Why me ? » This is probably a sentence that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz must be thinking, as the war in Ukraine began just weeks after he formed his coalition government. Indeed, beyond the difficult consequences from an economic and energy point of view of this conflict, particularly in Germany which depended considerably on Russian gas before the war, it has been the subject, since the start of the conflict, of numerous criticisms and pressures. regarding the military aid provided by Berlin to Kyiv. And while Germany has already made a certain conceptual revolution by agreeing to deliver small arms, then armored vehicles, artillery systems, anti-aircraft batteries and now Marder infantry fighting vehicles, it seems that international expectations towards Berlin continue to grow, while now, several countries are openly putting pressure on Berlin to get the German authorities to authorize the delivery of heavy tanks Leopard 2 to the Ukrainian armed forces.
So after the French president's communication stunt about the AMX-10RC "light combat tanks" which will be delivered to the Ukrainian defenders, and the probable Joe Biden's push the next day to get Berlin to agree to Marder's unanticipated delivery, It is now other European countries which are joining the ballet to break the historic resistance of the Germans who refuse to see tanks of national manufacture evolve against the Russian armies in Ukraine, at the risk of recalling dark hours in the history of the country that many Germans preferred to forget. It must be said that unfortunately for Berlin, the vast majority of European armies with heavy tanks are precisely equipped with tanks Leopard 2 designed by Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, and that the re-export of these armored vehicles to Ukraine actually requires the explicit agreement of the German authorities.
The fact is, today, Poland but also Finland would be ready to provide the Ukrainian armies with part of their tanks Leopard 2. German industrialists, for their part, announced in March that they could, if necessary, deliver a few dozen Leopard 1 after a rehabilitation phase. At the same time, London hinted that Britain could deliver a dozen Challenger 2 heavy tanks, British equivalent of Leopard 2, in Kyiv, in a supercharged repeat of the French initiative regarding the AMX-10RC which gave the start of the current dynamic to deliver Western heavy armored vehicles to the Ukrainian armies.
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[…] to the detriment of its German neighbour, which is also a relatively easy target because it has already been the subject of much criticism since the start of the conflict. The latter knew full well that Berlin could not agree easily, […]