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Battle tanks from German industrial reserves wanted by Ukraine will not be ready to be delivered until 2024, the arms manufacturer Rheinmetall has warned, dampening Kyiv’s hopes that the UK’s promise to deliver Challenger 2 tanks would encourage other European nations to swiftly follow suit.
“Even if the decision to send our Leopard tanks to Kyiv came tomorrow, the delivery would take until the start of next year,” Rheinmetall’s chief executive, Armin Papperger, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
Rheinmetall, which manufactures the battle vehicle’s gun, has 22 Leopard 2 and 88 older Leopard 1 tanks in its stocks. Getting the Leopard tanks ready for battle, however, would take several months and cost hundreds of millions of euros the company could not put up until the order was confirmed, Papperger said.
“The vehicles must be completely dismantled and rebuilt,” he added.
The warning came as rescue workers continued to search through the rubble in the city of Dnipro, where a Russian missile strike on Saturday destroyed a nine-storey apartment block, killing at least 21 people and leaving about 400 homeless. The fate of over 20 people is unknown.
Other Ukrainian cities hit on Saturday included Odesa in the south, Kharkiv in the east, Lviv in the west and the capital, Kyiv. Civilian infrastructure, including electricity sites, were again damaged and power outages reported.
Ukraine’s western partners have in recent weeks slowly edged towards delivering heavier vehicles Kyiv could use to reclaim territories seized by Russia since the start of the invasion in February 2022.
Britain’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, on Saturday night crossed a previously held red line when he said his country would become the first to send western-type main battle tanks to Ukraine, in the form of 14 Challenger 2 tanks.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, expressed hope on Twitter that these deliveries “will not only strengthen us on the battlefield, but also send the right signal to other partners”.
Poland declared on Wednesday it was also willing to send a company of Leopard tanks to Ukraine “as part of international coalition building”, while Finland also signalled readiness to contribute battle tanks of the same model if a European joint defence package was established.
Germany has a key role in these deliveries since it is the country where the Leopard tanks are made and it has to approve their re-export from other states. The German deputy chancellor, Robert Habeck, said last week Berlin would not stand in the way if Warsaw decided to supply Kyiv with Leopards from its stocks.
Ukraine-supporting states from across the EU and the US are due to meet on Friday at the Ramstein air base in south-western Germany.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Oleksiy Makeev, meanwhile reiterated his country’s appeal for more heavy weapons deliveries in an interview with the news agency dpa.
“German weapons save lives”, he said. “German anti-aircraft systems help us to deter rockets and German tanks will help us liberate territories. And the abominations committed by Russian occupying forces will become fewer.”
English (US)