Warsaw is reportedly waiting for a green light from Germany to send the much-touted Leopard tanks to Ukraine, but plans to send them regardless of Berlin’s decision, Poland’s prime minister said on Monday.
The German foreign minister said on Sunday that Berlin would not stand in the way if Poland wanted to.
The issue of delivering German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine has dominated recent discussions by the Western Allies about how much and what kind of material assistance they should provide to Ukraine as the first anniversary of the Russian invasion approaches.
The development comes as both sides are believed to be planning spring offensives to break the stalemate in a war of attrition in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Current fighting is centered on the town of Bakhmut to the east, where Wagner’s Russian mercenaries and Ukrainian forces have come together in battle. Russia said on Sunday that its forces were improving their positions in the Zaporozhye region in southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, has been tackling a corruption scandal that could dampen Western enthusiasm for his government.
One newspaper reported that the military had bought food at grossly inflated prices, and that a deputy minister had resigned following an investigation into allegations of bribery.
Leopards in motion
Ukrainian officials have been pleading with Western allies for months to supply them with Leopard tanks, but Germany has refrained from sending them or allowing them to be re-exported to other NATO countries. Leopards, which are in service with a number of NATO countries, are considered by defense experts to be the most suitable for Ukraine.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that Warsaw would ask Germany for permission to re-export tanks to Ukraine, “but this is a matter of secondary importance.
“Even if we hadn’t received this permission … we would still hand over our tanks, along with others, to Ukraine,” he told reporters. “The condition for us at the moment is to create at least a small coalition of countries.”
Last week, the Western allies promised to provide Ukraine with billions of dollars worth of weapons, but they failed to convince Germany to lift its veto on the supply of tanks.
But in a clear reversal of Germany’s position, Foreign Minister Annalena Burbock said on Sunday her government would not block Poland if it tried to send its Leopards.
Burbock’s remarks seem to go further than Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s remarks at the Paris summit earlier in the day that all arms transfer decisions would be made in coordination with allies, including the United States.
Ukraine says heavily armored battle tanks will give its ground forces greater mobility and protection ahead of a new Russian offensive expected in the coming months.
“Terrible War”
US lawmakers on Sunday pushed their government to export M1 Abrams main battle tanks to Ukraine, saying even sending a token amount would help nudge European allies to do the same. Washington has so far refrained from promising its tanks, which are powered by voracious gas turbine engines, which it thinks make less sense to Ukraine than the Leopards.
The UK has announced that it will supply Ukraine with 14 Challenger 2 tanks. French President Emmanuel Macron said he does not exclude the possibility of sending Leclerc tanks to Ukraine. British and French tanks are much less common than Leopards.
A close associate of President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that the supply of offensive weapons to Kyiv that threaten Russian territories would lead to a global catastrophe and render arguments against the use of weapons of mass destruction untenable.
Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the Russian lower house of parliament, warned that U.S. and NATO support for Ukraine is leading the world to a “terrible war.”
European Union foreign ministers met on Monday to discuss additional military assistance to Ukraine. EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Josep Borrell said he hoped they would approve another 500 million euro ($545 million) tranche of support.
The ministers will also discuss using Russian assets frozen in Europe due to sanctions, including 300 billion euros ($327 billion) in Russian central bank reserves, and using that money to rebuild Ukraine after the war.
After its invasion on February 24, 2022, which Russia presented as a defense against an aggressive West, Russia took control of parts of Ukraine and declared that it would never return them. Ukraine has declared that the restoration of its territorial integrity is not subject to negotiations.
Also on Monday, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) accused Ukraine of storing Western weapons at nuclear power plants across the country. He did not provide any evidence and Reuters was unable to verify the claims.
The SVR said US-supplied HIMARS rocket launchers, air defense systems and artillery ammunition were delivered to the Rovno nuclear power plant in northwestern Ukraine.
Ukrainian nuclear power plants have been in the spotlight since the beginning of the conflict. Russian troops took over the inactive Chernobyl nuclear power plant less than 48 hours after the troops invaded, and also took over the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant – the largest in Europe – at the start of the war.
The United Nations Nuclear Service has expressed serious concern about the attacks near the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, warning of the risk of a nuclear catastrophe.
