CBS News
The German government will not object if Poland decides to send Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine, Germany’s top diplomat said Sunday, indicating movement on supplying weapons that Kyiv has described as essential to its ability to fend off an intensified Russian offensive.
Polish officials have not formally requested Berlin’s permission to share some of their German-made Leopards, but German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told French TV channel LCI that “if we were asked, we would not stand in the way.”
Baerbock stated in interview clips published by LCI that German officials “know how important these tanks are” and “this is why we are discussing this now with our partners.”
During a gathering on Friday at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, supporters of Ukraine pledged billions of dollars in military assistance to Ukraine. The failure to reach an agreement over Ukraine’s urgent request for Leopard 2 tanks overshadowed the new commitments made by international defense leaders.
Germany is one of the main donors of weapons to Ukraine, and it ordered a review of its Leopard 2 stocks in preparation for a possible green light. Nonetheless, the government in Berlin has shown caution at each step of increasing its military aid to Ukraine, a hesitancy seen as rooted in its history and political culture.
Germany’s tentativeness has drawn criticism, particularly from Poland and the Baltic states, countries on NATO’s eastern flank that feel especially threatened by Russia’s renewed aggression.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that if the fellow NATO and European Union member did not consent to transferring Leopard tanks to Ukraine, his country was prepared to build a “smaller coalition” of countries that would send theirs anyway.
“Almost a year had passed since the outbreak of war,” Morawiecki said in an interview with Polish state news agency PAP published Sunday. “Evidence of the Russian army’s war crimes can be seen on television and on YouTube. What more does Germany need to open its eyes and start to act in line with the potential of the German state?”
Previously, some officials in Poland indicated that Finland and Denmark also were ready to send Leopards to Ukraine.
Earlier Sunday, the speaker of the lower house of Russia’s parliament, State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin, said governments that give more powerful weapons to Ukraine risked causing a “global tragedy that would destroy their countries.”
“Supplies of offensive weapons to the Kyiv regime would lead to a global catastrophe,” Volodin said. “If Washington and NATO supply weapons that would be used for striking peaceful cities and making attempts to seize our territory as they threaten to do, it would trigger a retaliation with more powerful weapons.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, said Sunday that he had asked his defense minister to “work on” the idea of sending some of France’s Leclerc battle tanks to Ukraine.
Macron spoke during a news conference in Paris with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as France and Germany commemorated the 60th anniversary of their post-World War II friendship treaty. In a joint declaration, the two countries committed to their “unwavering support” for Ukraine.
France will make its tank decision based on three criteria, Macron said: that sharing the equipment does not lead to an escalation of the conflict, that it would provide efficient and workable help when training time is taken into account, and that it wouldn’t weaken France’s own military.
Scholz did not respond when asked about the Leopard 2 tanks Sunday, but stressed that his country already has made sizable military contributions to Ukraine.
“The U.S. is doing a lot, Germany is doing a lot, too,” he said. “We have constantly expanded our deliveries with very effective weapons that are already available today. And we have always coordinated all these decisions closely with our important allies and friends.”
In Washington, two leading lawmakers urged the U.S. on Sunday to send some of its Abrams tanks to Ukraine in the interests of overcoming Germany’s reluctance to share its own, more suitable tanks.
“If we announced we were giving an Abrams tank, just one, that would unleash” the flow of tanks from Germany, Rep. Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told ABC’s “This Week on Sunday.” “What I hear is that Germany’s waiting on us to take the lead.”
Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat who is on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also spoke up for the U.S. sending Abrams.
“If it requires our sending some Abrams tanks in order to unlock getting the Leopard tanks from Germany, from Poland, from other allies, I would support that,” Coons said.
Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of the Russian Security Council, said Friday’s U.S.-led meeting at the air base in Germany “left no doubt that our enemies will try to exhaust or better destroy us,” adding that “they have enough weapons” to achieve the purpose.
Medvedev, a former Russian president, warned that “in case of a protracted conflict,” Russia could seek to form a military alliance with “the nations that are fed up with the Americans and a pack of their castrated dogs.”
Ukraine has argued it needs more weapons as it anticipates Russia’s forces launching a new offensive in the spring.
Oleksii Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council, cautioned that while conquering Kyiv “remains the main dream” in President Vladimir Putin’s “fantasies,” Russia may attempt to step up its attacks in the south and the east and to cut supply channels of Western weapons.
He characterized the Kremlin’s objective in the conflict as a “total and absolute genocide, a total war of destruction” in a column that was published by the online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda.
Former British prime minister Boris Johnson, who paid a surprise visit to Ukraine on Sunday, was one of those advocating for Ukraine to receive more weapons. Johnson, who was captured in the town of Borodyanka in the Kyiv region, claimed that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had invited him to visit the country.
“Now is the time to commit full force and provide the Ukrainians with all the resources required to complete the task. For Ukraine and the rest of the world, the sooner Putin falls, “According to Johnson’s statement.
Even by the standards of a brutal war that has been raging for nearly a year, killing tens of thousands of people, uprooting millions more, and wreaking massive destruction on Ukrainian cities, the past week was particularly tragic for that country.
At least 45 civilians were killed on January 14 when a barrage of Russian missiles pounded an apartment building in the city of Dnipro in the southeast. In a Kyiv suburb on Wednesday, a government helicopter collided with a structure housing a kindergarten. Among the 14 fatalities were the interior minister of Ukraine, other officials, and a child on the ground.
Zelenskyy promised on Sunday that Ukraine would win the conflict.
“We stand together because we are powerful. We are unified, and that makes us strong “During a video speech to commemorate Ukraine Unity Day, which marks the unification of east and west Ukraine in 1919, the Ukrainian leader made the statement.
