Germany will send its own Leopard tanks to Ukraine and will authorize the export of the Polish ones, according to 'Der Spiegel'

A Polish Leopard during maneuvers in May 2022. WOJTEK RADWANSKI (AFP)

Germany has already made a decision: it will deliver its own Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, according to the weekly

.

In addition, the government of Olaf Scholz is preparing to give authorization so that other countries that have these tanks can in turn re-export them, adds this publication, which cites its own sources.

The decision represents a turn in the position that Berlin had defended until now.

The news comes after the US

reported that the United States is determined to supply an as yet undetermined number of its Abrams main battle tanks.

Although Berlin has denied that this was his condition for sending the Leopards, different sources have confirmed that Scholz required an agreement from all the allies, including Washington, to decide to send the German tanks.

According to the German media, the supply would consist of at least one Leopard 2 company of the A6 model.

A company is equivalent in some armies to 14 units.

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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Defense Minister Boris Pistorius have repeated these days, in response to pressure from partners such as Poland, who were hoping to form a coalition of all allies and that Germany would never act alone.

Details of the agreement are not yet known.

On Wednesday Scholz appears in the Bundestag (German Parliament), where he is expected to offer information on the number of tanks he is willing to send to Ukraine.

Pistorius said last week in Davos that he was preparing to make an inventory of both the units that the Bundeswehr (German Army) has and those that the industry may have in

.

During the last days, Poland has centralized the public debate and has led a group of countries that pressured Germany to give the green light to re-export or join the joint shipment of tanks.

This Tuesday he presented the formal request to the Scholz government to send 14 units to kyiv.

The Leopard 2 are modern and agile armored vehicles that the Ukrainian army has been demanding for months to defend itself against Russian aggression and to be able to recover ground conquered by the invading forces, as well as to face the new offensive that, according to NATO, is preparing the Kremlin.

Although Poland has its own Leopards, it needs authorization from the manufacturing country, in this case Germany, to re-export them to kyiv.

Two Scholz ministers had announced on Tuesday that the decision would be made "very soon."

Armies of 15 European countries have in their arsenals a total of 2,405 units of the German Leopard 2 tank, of different models and upgrades.

According to figures from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Germany has 521. The debate over the tanks in recent days and the pressure from Poland and the Baltic States to expedite Berlin's decision has made visible some fractures between the allies in the formula to supply lethal military material to kyiv.

Until now for Scholz the delivery of tanks was a red line.

The chancellor was concerned that Russian President Vladimir Putin would find an excuse for escalating the conflict in German tanks.

"We must prevent it from becoming a war between Russia and NATO," he said last week at the economic forum in Davos (Switzerland).

The Netherlands is also considering making 18 Leopard 2 main battle tanks available to Ukraine, which they have on a lease basis.

"We rent them, which means we can buy them, which means we can donate them," Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Tuesday in an interview with various international media in Brussels.

The politician added that if there was the possibility of arranging a handover with other countries such as Finland and Portugal, they would be "willing to consider it," the

quotes him .

"We are preparing our decision, which will take place very soon," German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Tuesday after receiving NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Berlin.

Pistorius stressed that Berlin was not going to get in the way of the decision taken by other partners and assured that Berlin supports the initiative to start offering Leopard training to Ukrainian troops as soon as possible, a proposal made by Poland and Finland at the summit in Ramstein last week.

Stoltenberg praised Berlin's role in supporting Ukraine.

“Germany is providing some of the largest military, financial and humanitarian aid,” he noted: “German weapons save lives in Ukraine every day.”

But he also made it very clear that he expected more leadership from the Scholz government.

“At this crucial moment in the war, we must provide Ukraine with heavier systems, and we must do it faster,” he urged.

"The only way to achieve lasting peace is to make it clear to [Vladimir] Putin that he will not win on the battlefield," the Norwegian added.

Equipment as complex as the Leopard requires more than training troops in its use.

If Berlin eventually decides to join a coalition that sends tanks to Ukraine, it will ensure that they have adequate logistical support and the necessary spare parts.

There are multiple versions and upgrades of the Leopard in European arsenals.

Many are manufactured by the Rheinmetall consortium in Germany, but there are also those produced in third countries thanks to the transfer of licences, as is the case of the Spanish Leopardo 2E.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin has once again raised its tone and has warned that the supply of tanks to Ukraine will not bring "nothing good" and that it will affect relations between Russia and Germany.

"These relations are already at a very low point and there is no constructive dialogue either with Germany or with other NATO countries," Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said at a daily telephone press conference quoted by the state agency. Tass.

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