Umland on why Germany is slow to help Ukraine/Channel 24 Collage
Germany is delaying the provision of promised military assistance to Ukraine. In particular, in Berlin they do not rule out that the supply of tanks may fail altogether.
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This was reported to Channel 24 by Andreas Umland, an analyst at the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies. Berlin said that “circular deliveries” of tanks for Ukraine could fail.
According to German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock, now there is a search for alternatives to the agreements that were previously established with Poland regarding tanks for Ukraine.
“Germany is not a military state”
According to Umland, the supply of weapons to Ukraine for the Germans is a much more difficult task than one might imagine.
Germany is not a military state. When it comes to military affairs, it is not the best partner,” the analyst emphasized.
He added that Germany has a significantly smaller amount of military equipment than other Western countries.
“For example, the United States there are 6,000 M1 Abrams tanks. And Germany has about 300 tanks, and not all of them work,” said Umland.
Why there were no direct deliveries of tanks
Despite this, the analyst assured, Germany has the political will and a great desire to help Ukraine in the war with Russia. However, the German bureaucracy gets in the way.
How to do this quickly and efficiently? This is a big task,” he said.
In addition, according to Umland, in Germany they note that Ukrainians need to be trained in order to master new technology.
It takes time to learn how to drive such a modern tank. Therefore, there have been no direct deliveries of German tanks to Ukraine yet,” Umland stressed.
Analyst Andreas Umland evaluates Germany's weapons claims: watch video
Help from Germany: latest news
- At the end of April, the German Bundestag supported the supply of heavy weapons to Ukraine by a majority vote. Now the Federal Parliament of Germany is calling for a transition from a circular to a direct transfer of military assistance to our state.
- At the end of June, the FRG published a list of weapons that Germany transferred directly to Ukraine. Behind him, from the end of March, Berlin handed over to Kyiv mainly mines and hand grenades. At the same time, in June our state received seven anti-missile howitzers from the FRG, which the country promised to transfer in early May.
- Germany announced that it was ready to provide Ukraine with another assistance. Berlin is allegedly going to supply tanks to Ukraine. However, we are talking about only 20 Leopard 2 tanks. Starting from April 2023, Germany wants to supply Ukraine with 1 tank per month, from October 2023 – 3 units per month.
