Baerbock shows readiness for further delivery of weapons

Created: 04/05/2022, 16:31

A "Marder" infantry fighting vehicle drives onto a floating bridge during a Bundeswehr exercise on the Elbe beach.

© Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert/dpa

Poland is buying tanks, the Czech Republic is supplying tanks - and Germany is examining the delivery of further weapon systems.

Meanwhile, Russia's former head of state, Medvedev, prepares the soldiers for longer battles.

Berlin - In view of the atrocities of war in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has signaled her willingness to deliver further weapon systems to Ukraine.

“We don't say no, we look at what solutions there are.

Together as the EU, as NATO and above all as a G7 partner," said the Green politician on Tuesday at an international supporters' conference for Moldova in Berlin.

Since the beginning of the Russian war, Germany has been supplying Ukraine with weapons, such as anti-aircraft missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.

"There aren't many other states that have delivered more."

The public discussion is about the delivery of used Marder-type infantry fighting vehicles, which would first have to be overhauled by the armaments company Rheinmetall to make them suitable for war.

The federal government is now looking at weapon systems that Germany has not yet delivered, said Baerbock.

"However, the Bundeswehr itself hardly has any in the depots." When talking about old weapon systems, it must be taken into account "that there are also many questions of logistics, training and spare parts - spare parts that may no longer exist," said the minister.

The older the system is, the more difficult it becomes to answer these questions.

In view of the "inhumanity" of the war atrocities in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, coordinated action by the G7 group of leading industrial nations is necessary, said Baerbock.

Germany is currently chairing it.

At the foreign ministers' meeting of the NATO countries on Wednesday in Brussels, discussions will be held on how Ukraine can be better and more strongly supported in its defense.

"Just as with the sanctions, a joint approach has the greatest impact here."

Report: Czech Republic supplies T-72 main battle tanks to Ukraine

The German government recently approved the delivery of 56 modernized PbV-501 armored personnel carriers from the Czech Republic to Ukraine.

This was necessary because the vehicles originally came from Bundeswehr stocks.

According to a media report, the Czech Republic has now delivered main battle tanks to Ukraine.

A freight train with several dozen Soviet-made T-72 tanks and BMP-1 armored personnel carriers had already been dispatched on Monday, the news portal "Echo24.cz" reported on Tuesday.

T-72 tanks were also produced under license in former Czechoslovakia during the Eastern Bloc era.

The Czech Republic had recently stored around 90 copies of an older, not modernized version.

Czech Defense Minister Jana Cernochova showed understanding for the interest of the media, but did not want to directly confirm the report.

"It's a war there and we don't want to make life easier for the murderers with the letter Z," she tweeted, referring to the Russian army's invasion symbol keep going," added the liberal-conservative politician.

In view of the war in Ukraine, Poland is buying 250 main battle tanks from the USA worth more than four billion euros.

At the signing of the treaty in Warsaw on Tuesday, Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak referred to the war in Ukraine.

"We are all aware of what is happening behind our eastern border," Blaszczak said.

Referring to Russia, he added: "Strengthening the Polish army is a task that the government is consistently implementing to deter a potential aggressor."

Merz: Delivery of weapons must be a top priority

The CDU chairman Friedrich Merz also demanded the delivery of heavy weapons such as tanks.

"The supply of arms is permissible for the self-defense of this country.

And it should also be done to the extent that this country needs it and how it can serve it," said the chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag on Tuesday in Berlin.

"I wouldn't want to make a distinction here from my side right now," he said when asked if he made a distinction between different types of weapons.

"Ukraine needs weapons to defend itself and also to push back Russian aggression," Merz said.

"The delivery of weapons does not make Germany a combatant."

The Ukrainian ambassador in Berlin, Andriy Melnyk, had criticized Germany's reluctance to deliver arms on Deutschlandfunk in the morning.

"What we need today are heavy weapons, tanks, armored cars, artillery systems, multiple rocket launchers - that with which you can also liberate the areas in the south, in the south-east," he said.

"You can't launch a counteroffensive with a bazooka, unfortunately."

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Merz said there was increasing evidence that Germany was not supplying the weapons that the federal government was claiming to be supplying.

The topic must be a matter for the boss.

"I would like to ask the Chancellor from this point to take matters into his own hands." He should no longer leave this question to his quarreling ministers.

Medvedev prepares Russians for longer fights

Former Russian head of state Dmitry Medvedev is preparing his country for a longer fight against Ukraine.

President Vladimir Putin has set the goal of "demilitarizing and denazifying" Ukraine, Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel on Tuesday.

"These difficult tasks cannot be accomplished quickly."

Russia justified the attack on Ukraine on February 24 with the "denazification" of the country, among other things - an untenable pretext from the point of view of many experts.

Even more sharply than Putin in his public statements, Medvedev equated Ukraine with the National Socialist Third Reich.

It wouldn't be surprising if Ukraine suffered the same fate as the Third Reich, he wrote: "This is the way for such a Ukraine." But the collapse could open the way for "an open Eurasia from Lisbon to Vladivostok."

"Medvedev believes that Russia is taking the first step towards creating a free Eurasia from Lisbon to Vladivostok in Ukraine," commented Martin Aust, a historian of Eastern Europe from Bonn, on Twitter.

"We must do everything to ensure that Ukraine and Europe are spared this."

Similar to Medvedev, a comment by the state news agency Ria Novosti on Sunday questioned the right of Ukraine and Ukrainians to exist as a people.

Under the headline “What Russia Should Do With Ukraine”, the author called for generational re-education under Russian control.

“Denazification will inevitably mean de-Ukrainization,” it said.

dpa