Germany’s Protection Minister Christine Lambrecht made a shock go to to the Black Sea port metropolis of Odessa on Saturday, vowing to supply extra navy support to Ukraine within the coming days, together with the long-promised Iris-T SLM ground-based air protection system.
“In a couple of days, we are going to ship the very trendy IRIS-T air protection system,” she introduced following a gathering together with her Ukrainian counterpart Aleksey Reznikov.
Berlin initially promised again in June to ship Kiev not less than one Iris-T unit free of charge, however Ukraine reportedly desires not less than a dozen and has provided to buy the remaining straight from the producer, although Germany’s personal armed forces have but to obtain these methods themselves.
Germany alone despatched not less than $711 million value of arms to Ukraine, together with a number of deliveries of self-propelled Gepard anti-aircraft weapons and PzH 2000 howitzers, because the begin of the battle in late February.
Kiev, nevertheless, repeatedly criticized Berlin for supposedly not doing sufficient and refusing to supply it with Leopard battle tanks and Marder infantry preventing autos. Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised in August that Germany’s “most trendy and environment friendly tools” can be equipped to Ukraine “quickly,” referring to the Iris-T methods and Cobra artillery radars, however not tanks.
Berlin argues that no different nation has up to now despatched trendy tanks, with Lambrecht reiterating on Saturday that Germany “has all the time made it clear that we are going to not go it alone on this space” with a view to keep away from “escalation.” As a substitute, Berlin has provided third international locations, such Greece, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic and Poland, to switch their stockpiles of Soviet-era {hardware} to Ukraine in change for contemporary German weaponry.
Moscow has lengthy criticized the deliveries of weapons, arguing that they solely lengthen the battle and enhance the danger of a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.
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