Germany has stepped up its military support for Ukraine in its war with Russia by agreeing to deliver a Patriot missile system and an unspecified number of Marder armoured troop transporters.
The United States is also ready to send new Bradley armoured vehicles, according to a statement issued following a phone call between president Joe Biden and chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday evening.
In their statement the two leaders “expressed their common determination to continue to provide the necessary financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support to Ukraine for as long as needed”.
Germany is expected to supply up to 40 Marder vehicles while the US will provide Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. Both countries will provide training for Ukrainian soldiers, with Germany willing to host Bradley training on its territory. The two leaders said they would welcome if allies provided “additional donations of air defence systems and combat vehicles”.
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Their announcement came hours after Paris agreed to send the first western-built armoured vehicles to Ukraine.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy thanked France for its offer of AMX-10 RC armoured vehicles after a call with French president Emmanuel Macron. The Ukrainian defence ministry called the delivery “another step that will bring our victory closer”.
The French light armoured vehicles have a 105mm cannon, two machine guns and are highly mobile, using wheels rather than tracks.
Until now, Germany, France, the US and other Nato allies have been hesitant about supplying advanced armaments and armoured vehicles demanded by Ukraine for fear of provoking Russia.
Senior German officials said on Friday that, based on analysis by Nato partners, stepping up arms supplies to Ukraine would not trigger Russian retaliation and see the military alliance dragged into the conflict.
“We are far from fatigued when it comes to support for Ukraine,” said Nils Schmid, foreign policy spokesman for the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD), adding that another re-evaluation of what western countries will supply Ukraine “can happen at any time”.
He said Germany’s deliveries of Marder vehicles and the Patriot system would be completed by May. “The red line for us, unchanged since the start of the conflict, is war participation by Germany and Nato, that remains ruled out,” said Mr Schmid.
While he said on Friday there were now “no taboos” in supplying Ukraine, Germany is still refusing to send heavy Leopard 2 model tanks, demanded by Ukraine, to replace their failing Soviet-era models.
The speed and nature of Germany’s deliveries to Ukraine have been a repeated source of tension in Berlin’s three-way coalition, which the new deliveries have only exacerbated.
While Mr Scholz’s centre-left Social Democratic Party has taken a cautious approach to deliveries, both the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) and Greens are demanding more ambition.
An FDP spokeswoman said the Marder deliveries were “late but not too late, but we are not letting go: after the Marders comes the Leopards”.
Anton Hofreiter, a senior Green politician, said that had Berlin supplied Marder vehicles earlier “fewer Ukrainian soldiers would have died, that has to be said”.
He added: “I wish Germany, as the main manufacturer of Leopard 2 tanks, would start a European initiative to deliver [them] to Ukraine to free occupied territories.”
German opposition politicians criticised the scale – and timing - of Berlin’s decision as “giving no sign of leadership”.
“There is only ever movement under pressure, when nothing else is possible,” said Norbert Röttgen, foreign policy spokesman of the opposition Christian Democratic Union.
