Scholz in about-turn as Germany supplies 50 anti-aircraft tanks... but with no ammo

GERMANY announced yesterday that it would send anti-aircraft tanks to Ukraine, but it later emerged that Berlin has not yet secured ammunition for them.

The move marked an about-turn for Olaf Scholz’s government, which previously refused to send heavy weaponry from Germany to Kyiv.

But it has emerged that ammunition for the Gepard tanks has not yet been secured. Switzerland reportedly turned down a German request to supply the ammunition, citing its neutrality.

The German defence ministry said “the issue of munitions is still to be clarified with industry representatives”.

According to a report in Bild newspaper, the decision was made at extremely short notice, with a government source telling the newspaper that Berlin didn’t want to arrive at a meeting of defence ministers yesterday “empty handed”.

Krauss-maffei Wegmann, the weapons manufacturer, was given permission to sell 50 refurbished Gepard (Cheetah) anti-aircraft tanks from German army stocks, Christine Lambrecht, the German defence minister, said yesterday.

It followed a threat by the opposition CDU to force a parliamentary vote on the supply of heavy arms to Ukraine, a move intended to drive a wedge between the chancellor and his junior coalition partners who support heavy weapons shipments.

Boris Johnson has also urged Berlin to send more weapons to Kyiv and this is expected to be the first German shipment of heavy arms to Ukraine.

The CDU welcomed the about-turn and said the government had only relented under their pressure, while the US said the shipment was “significant”.

“There has been criticism of Germany in recent weeks,” Ms Lambrecht said at the American air base in Ramstein.

She rejected accusations that Berlin had been too slow to secure shipments of heavy weapons. “We have always made our decision in coordination with our allies,” she said.

Representatives of about 40 countries discussed the war in Ukraine at the base, with Canada promising eight armoured vehicles.

The tanks can also be used against ground targets, although the Gepards are said to be harder to drive than other types of tank, such as the Marder.

“The real significance of this decision lies not in the difference Gepards may make on the battlefield, but in the signal it sends,” said Marcel Dirsus, non-resident fellow at Kiel University’s Institute for Security Policy.

It was unclear where Germany will get the ammunition for the tanks. The tank’s cannon and its ammunition were produced by the Swiss arms company Oerlikon Contraves, meaning that it is subject to strict rules governing neutrality. According to Swiss law, weapons built in the country are banned from being exported into a war zone.

Berlin reportedly twice attempted to gain an export licence from Bern but was turned down on both occasions.

Germany also confirmed that it would start training Ukrainian soldiers in the use of Western artillery systems on German soil for the first time. It plans to replace Soviet-era tanks supplied by eastern European states to Ukraine with modern German weaponry.

Berlin will give Slovenia modern Leopard 2 tanks in exchange for Yugoslavian M-84 tanks that it would ship to Ukraine.

The defence company Rheinmetall has also requested to export 88 old Leopard tanks to Ukraine, the newspaper reported.

‘The importance of this is not in the difference the tanks may make on the battlefield, but in the signal it sends’