Canada presses Germany to boost parts production as Ukraine struggles to field its Leopard tanks
Germany's defence minis‐ ter acknowledged Friday that countries like Canada and to a lesser extent Ukraine - are in a tough spot when it comes to maintaining older variants of the Leopard 2 main bat‐ tle tank and keeping them in the field.
Boris Pistorious, who vis‐ ited Ottawa and met with his counterpart Defence Minister Bill Blair, was asked about the world-wide shortage of spare parts affecting the A4 model of the Leopard, the type overwhelmingly used by the Canadian Army.
It's also the model which Canada, Poland, Norway, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and Portugal all donated to Ukraine.
Media reports in Germany and elsewhere in Europe last winter said that many of the Leopards donated to Ukraine - of which 67 were A4 vari‐ ants - were out of commis‐ sion, either due to battle damage or a shortage of spares.
The problem, said Pistori‐ ous, is that there's no pro‐ duction line to make spare parts for the A4. That's some‐ thing Canada has been qui‐ etly lobbying to change for months.
"We can easily provide more spare parts for the Leopard tank 2A6, for exam‐ ple, but for 2A4 there is no production line," Pistorious said during a media availabil‐ ity at Department of National Defence headquarters.
"So we have to collect those spare parts all over the world and try to get more of them by ... I don't know how fast it's possible to make, to start with a new production line."
In January, German Green Party lawmaker Sebastian Schäfer told Der Spiegel that
Ukraine has "very few" Leop‐ ard tanks left and some are no longer operational. He made the comments after visiting a repair facility in Lithuania where he was briefed about the dearth of spare parts.
Schäfer wrote to the Ger‐ man manufacturers to tell them that "only a very small number of the battle tanks delivered can still be used by Ukraine."
On Friday, Pistorious could only offer a partial so‐ lution to the problem.
"At the moment, this is a particular challenge for those countries who used to use Leopard 2A4 tanks in their recent past," he said. "We have been using only the Leopard tank 2A6, we have spare parts for that, and we are delivering spare parts for that to Ukraine too."
After a lot of hesitation, Germany delivered 18 Leop‐ ard 2 A6s to Ukraine a year ago in March as part of its military assistance package.
The Canadian Army has roughly 54 Leopard A4s and A4Ms variants, as well as 20 A6 models in its inventory. It also has faced a shortage of spare parts, which has side‐ lined and in some cases lim‐ ited the use of the tanks in training.
Last fall, CBC News re‐ ported on how high prices and corporate rivalries helped fuel the shortage of spare parts and hobbled ef‐ forts to set up a new tank re‐ pair facility in Poland for Ukraine's donated Leopards.
Critics have pointed the finger at the German manu‐ facturers Krauss-Maffei Weg‐ mann (which makes the chassis) and Rheinmetall (which makes the cannon) and said their refusal to share the intellectual prop‐ erty rights for the various components of the Leopard A4s with other companies has caused the parts short‐ age and driven up the cost of repairs.
Federal officials say Cana‐ da has been working behind the scenes with Germany to establish a production line to deliver spares for Leopard A4s. They were unable to say where the discussions stand.
Also on Friday, Blair an‐ nounced Canada will con‐ tribute $76 million to Ger‐ many's Immediate Action on Air Defence (IAAD) initiative in support of Ukraine. The initiative - essentially a pool of money to which allied countries contribute - is de‐ signed to quickly source and deliver air defence systems for Ukraine.