Scholz said to refuse to supply Ukraine with tanks

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has rejected Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal's request over the additional heavy weapons supply.

The German Welt newspaper learnt this from Ukraine's government circles, European Pravda reports.

It was, in particular, about the supply of the state-of-the-art Leopard 2 tanks by the German industry.

The reason for this was an April 8 offer from the Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) arms group for direct delivery to Ukraine. At the time, the company had already agreed to supply Ukraine with 100 Leopard 2A7 tanks, as well as spare parts and soldier training units, for a total of 1.55 billion euros [$1.48 billion]. As a result, the first tanks could be delivered 36 months after the contract is signed.

Scholz, on the other hand, did not promise such supplies and instead remained "general and vague" in his conversation with Shmyhal. According to a source, the Chancellor has expressed "absolutely no desire" to change his negative stance on tank supply.

In response to a request from Welt, the Scholz administration stated that it will continue to support Ukraine militarily, politically, financially, and humanitarianly.

"We ask you to understand that we, as a rule, do not report confidential discussions," said a representative of the chancellor's office.

Before his visit to Germany, Shmyhal called on the federal government to supply combat tanks to the Ukrainian military in order to repel Russian attackers.

During his visit to Berlin, he talked about the supply of weapons to Ukraine with the German president as well.