The German chancellor’s office has struck off several heavy weapons from a list of wanted military hardware it has offered to buy from its arms industry on behalf of the Ukrainian government, according to a German media report that calls into question Olaf Scholz’s claim that he approved the procurement process. with Kyiv.
At a news conference Tuesday night, Scholz said he had asked arms companies to draw up a list of weapons systems they could deliver quickly to boost Ukraine’s defense efforts after the German military depleted its own supplies.
“Ukraine has already made a choice from this list and we will provide it with the necessary money for the purchase,” Scholz said.
According to a report in the Bild newspaper on Thursday, the industry’s proposal in mid-March still includes several heavy weapons, Kyiv says it will have to withstand Russia’s offensive in the east, including armored vehicles “Boxer” , Panzerhaubitze (PzH) 2000 Leopard 2 artillery system and battle tank, manufactured by the Munich-based defense company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann.
At the time the list of “Support Options Industry – Consolidated” was presented to the Ukrainian government in late March, Bild said it had shrunk from 48 to 24 pages and included only three of the 15 weapons requested. from Kyiv. Two subsequent requests from the Ukrainian government on April 9th and 16th were reportedly ignored by Germany.
The report is likely to add fuel to a diplomatic dispute in which Scholz’s coalition government says it is doing everything in its power to help Ukraine withstand Russia’s attack, while Ukrainian diplomats accuse Berlin of cutting off arms supplies for fear not to provoke Putin to escalate the war.
The list of industrial products that Germany claims will pay for includes some modern machines such as radar systems, remote-controlled weapon stations that can be mounted on Ukrainian tanks, and armored vehicles.
German Foreign Minister Analena Burbock said mysteriously on Wednesday that her government had in the past chosen not to make all arms exports to Ukraine public.
“We’ve delivered anti-tank missiles, Stingers and other things we’ve never talked about in public, so these deliveries can happen quickly,” she said.
Citing anonymous government sources, Bloomberg said Germany would provide Ukrainian troops with training and ammunition for PzH 2000, a self-propelled, high-speed artillery system that the Netherlands is sending to Ukraine. Scholz did not mention the agreement with the Netherlands in his speech on Tuesday.
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