Berlin approves delivery of tanks from the Czech Republic to Ukraine
Created: 04/01/2022 13:37
The shield of the Federal Ministry of Defense in Berlin.
© picture alliance / dpa
According to a report, a total of 58 armored personnel carriers from the stocks of the GDR's National People's Army may be delivered to Ukraine.
The federal government is said to have once refused their approval.
Berlin - The federal government has approved the delivery of armored personnel carriers from the Czech Republic to Ukraine.
These are 58 armored personnel carriers that come from the stocks of the National People's Army of the GDR, as the "Welt" reported on Friday.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense told the German Press Agency that a corresponding permit had been granted.
According to the report, the PbV-501 (formerly BMP-1) armored fighting vehicles are equipped with cannons and machine guns and were part of the standard equipment of the Warsaw Pact armies.
The armored personnel carriers came into the possession of the German armed forces after reunification and were initially handed over to the Swedish army at the end of the 1990s.
She later sold it to a Czech company, which is now trying to sell it to the Ukrainian army.
However, this required German approval.
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It is politically explosive that this approval was previously rejected by the federal government, the newspaper reported.
According to information from “Welt am Sonntag”, the Czech company already wanted to sell the same armored personnel carriers to the Ukrainian army in 2019.
At that time, too, a formal application was made to the federal government.
Because of the so-called "end use clause", weapons that originally came from the Bundeswehr may only be handed over to third parties with a permit from the federal government.
In 2019, however, this was still rejected.
At that time, the government under Angela Merkel (CDU) had decided not to deliver any weapons to Ukraine in order not to endanger the dialogue with Russia.
The tanks will not be delivered to Ukraine immediately because the armored personnel carriers have to be repaired beforehand, it said.
This will take a few weeks.
dpa
