A shipment that included tanks, armored vehicles and air defense systems arrived in early July, a German news outlet is reporting
The German government secretly delivered a new aid package to Ukraine between late June and early July, the Bavarian daily Munchner Merkur reported on Monday. The paper called the shipment “huge,” adding that it was done in a clandestine manner and went “largely unnoticed.”
The package included 39 pieces of various heavy armor from the stocks of Germany’s military and of its defense enterprises, Merkur reported, after analyzing government data. Kiev received ten more Leopard 1A5 main battle tanks and 20 more Marder infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), among other extra donations, the outlet said.
According to open data published by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s cabinet, the total number of Leopard 1A5 tanks and Marder IFVs delivered to Ukraine has grown to 50 and 120 respectively.
Other heavy equipment included in the latest delivery involved various engineering and mine-clearing vehicles, according to the report. The package also included 55,000 155mm artillery rounds, according to the government data.
It also showed that Berlin plans to send, by an unspecified date, 85 more Leopard 1A5 tanks to Ukraine, as part of a joint project with Denmark. The future deliveries are also to include 20 additional Marder IFVs. Merkur reported that Berlin had planned to provide Ukraine with up to 80 Leopards by the end of 2023 but fell behind schedule as the nation’s defense industry struggled to find spare parts for the armor pieces.
According to Merkur, Kiev is still hoping to get enough German tanks to form a specialized brigade for offensive operations and has been “holding back” its remaining western tanks for months.
The Russian military has previously published numerous videos showing German tanks being destroyed with kamikaze drones or even captured by Russian soldiers after being abandoned by their crews.
The latest batch of weapons also included two ground-based IRIS-T air defense systems and three US-made HIMARS multiple rocket launchers. In May, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius vowed Berlin would pay for the delivery of the US-made systems to Ukraine.
Germany has emerged as the second largest single military donor to Ukraine throughout the conflict, spending some €10.2 billion ($11.14 billion) on providing arms to Kiev between January 2022 and April 2024, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. Berlin has said some €28 billion ($30.5 billion) has been made available to support Kiev now and in the coming years.
In June, Chancellor Scholz admitted that many Germans were unhappy with the nation’s military support of Ukraine, but he maintained that there was no alternative to arming Kiev. In July, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky stated that his country would “never” have enough weapons.
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