Status: 09/13/2022 12:47 p.m
The calls for battle tanks and armored personnel carriers from Germany to the Ukraine are getting louder and louder. The armaments company Rheinmetall has now repaired 16 Marder tanks – but the export license is missing.
The armaments group Rheinmetall has largely restored 16 Marder armored personnel carriers from old Bundeswehr stocks at its own expense, the company announced on request NDR and ARD Capital Studio With. They are deliverable, but so far there is no export license for them from the federal government. Rheinmetall has already started processing 14 more martens. If necessary, 70 more vehicles from old stock could be made usable again.
The German government has so far refused to allow Western-style armored personnel carriers or main battle tanks to be delivered to Ukraine, citing agreements of this kind with other partner countries that provide military support to Ukraine.
FDP calls for more arms deliveries
“No country has yet delivered western-style armored personnel carriers or main battle tanks, and we have agreed with our partners that we will not go it alone by the Germans,” said Federal Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht on Monday. But in the past few days there have also been increasing calls from the ranks of the traffic light coalition that Germany must support Ukraine more with heavy weapons.
“Because Ukraine is so willing to fight to defend its country, support must now be provided to underpin the successes,” said Strack-Zimmermann, FDP, chairwoman of the defense committee ARD morning magazine. It is important to deliver appropriate tanks immediately.
FDP party leader Christian Lindner wrote on Twitter that the government had to check every day whether it could do more to help Ukraine. The first parliamentary secretary of the FDP parliamentary group, Johannes Vogel, added: When he looks at “the possibilities we have in terms of martens or foxes, tanks and armored vehicles, I think they have to be delivered to Ukraine now”.
Green co-boss Lang: Weapon systems can make a difference
The Greens co-boss Ricarda Lang also spoke out clearly in favor of further arms deliveries. You also have to look at the inventories of the industry. “Western weapon systems could make a difference in Ukraine’s defensive war against Russia,” said Lang. More needs to be delivered.
The agreement that no country would deliver armored personnel carriers or battle tanks was “not set in stone,” said SPD foreign policymaker Michael Roth on Deutschlandfunk. Corresponding talks could “go very quickly,” said Roth, who is also chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Bundestag. To his knowledge, “only the USA and Germany could deliver these tanks, which are now also expected from Ukraine.”
Meanwhile, US Ambassador Amy Gutmann said her expectations of Germany’s Ukraine aid were “even higher.” “We still have to do more, we are defending our own prosperity, our own democracy,” Gutmann recently told ZDF. The US embassy followed up on Twitter: The US called on all allies and partners to “give Ukraine as much support as possible in the fight for its democratic sovereignty.”