Germany reduces military aid to Ukraine

Over the past nine weeks, the German government has reduced military support to Ukraine to a minimum.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz refused to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons like tanks and armoured personnel carriers, referring to agreements with NATO allies, UNIAN reports, citing the documents under the disposal of Welt am Sonntag.

But since late March, Germany has hardly delivered any light weapons worthy of mention.

"From March 30 to May 26, Ukraine received only two batches of weapons from the German government. Both batches contained only small devices. Germany shipped 3,000 anti-tank mines and another 1,600 specialised directional anti-tank mines in mid-May," according to the document.

The previous shipment, which arrived in Ukraine a month earlier, contained only machine gun parts, igniters, detonating cords, radios, hand grenades, explosive charges and mines.

"Information about specific arms transfers is security-related and classified, so I ask for your understanding that I can neither provide further details nor confirm the details," a spokeswoman of the German Federal Ministry of Defence told WELT.

According to Ukraine, the last delivery of anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons took place more than two months ago, on March 25. It included 2,000 Panzerfaust 3 missiles and 1,500 Strela anti-aircraft missiles.

However, according to the Ukrainian list of March 29, the need for these munitions still remains. In addition to the Stinger anti-aircraft missile systems and anti-tank weapons, the Ukrainian army also needs anti-ship missiles of the Harpoon type. Ukraine confirmed the latter to Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht in letters dated 9 April and 1 May.

Meanwhile, Germany has not yet complied with Ukraine's requests for necessary arms supplies, although Chancellor Scholz has publicly promised further deliveries. For several weeks, he repeated that support for Kyiv continued. The last time was at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday: "Putin will enter into serious peace negotiations only if he realises that he cannot break Ukraine's defence capability. Therefore, we support Ukraine."

With no military aid from Berlin in weeks, the German government is moving away from its allies, who continue to supply light weapons in addition to heavy equipment, WELT notes. So, on Saturday, Kyiv reported that it received Harpoon missiles from Denmark and even more self-propelled howitzers from the United States.

Regarding heavy weapons, Scholz said he was "always in step with NATO partners" and support for Ukraine was "closely coordinated with our partners and allies". Since no NATO country supplies Western-style tanks, this was the reason for the refusal to supply Ukraine with German battle tanks and armoured personnel carriers, WELT writes.