Shipment of Leopard tanks to Kyiv to unavoidably affect Russian-German ties - Kremlin

Shipments of Leopard tanks to Ukraine do not bode well for Russian-German relations and will unavoidably affect their future development, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on January 24.

He made the remarks in response to a question on how Russian-German relations will change, should Berlin approve the shipment of Leopard tanks to Kyiv, TASS reports.

"Such shipments do not bode well for the future of [Russian-German] relations. They will, undoubtedly, leave an unavoidable mark for the future of these relations," he said.

According to Peskov, Russian-German relations are "already at a rather low point".

"We do not observe any substantial dialogue with Germany or other EU, NATO countries," he said.

On January 20, another meeting of defence ministers of about 50 countries took place at the Ramstein airbase in Germany, after which Pistorius said that the participants had not made a decision on the shipment of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine yet. According to Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Warsaw will create a separate coalition of countries, ready to ship tanks to Ukraine, should Germany not agree to that. According to the Prime Minister, Poland has already made a decision to ship a company (up to 14 vehicles) of these tanks to Ukraine and will act independently, regardless of Berlin’s position.