Germany’s Standoff Over Tanks for Ukraine Overshadows West’s Arms-Deal Meeting

Western defense chiefs are set to gather Friday for a critical meeting designed to showcase a major new arms package for Ukraine that has been overshadowed by an escalating dispute over whether Berlin should allow its allies to give Kyiv German-built battle tanks.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is coming under increasing pressure from the U.S. and its allies to permit the export of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. So far, the German leader hasn’t given way, saying consent would come only after Washington agrees to send U.S.-made M1 Abrams battle tanks, which it has said it isn’t ready to do.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with his new German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, on Thursday about an hour after Mr. Pistorius was formally sworn in as Mr. Scholz’s new defense minister. But no agreement on the supply of the German tanks was announced.

Ukraine’s most ardent backers in Europe said Thursday they would give Ukraine weapons far beyond what it has received to date, in what officials said was an attempt to pressure Germany and the other nearly 50 countries attending the meeting at the Ramstein U.S. Air Base in Germany.

In a joint statement, the U.K., Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Slovakia pledged “an unprecedented set of donations including main battle tanks, heavy artillery, air defense, ammunition, and infantry fighting vehicles.”

The military equipment they offered represents an attempt by Ukraine’s supporters to provide it with vast quantities of conventional artillery, ammunition and more modern air defense systems, helping it to stave off an expected Russian offensive and sustain what they worry will become a protracted war of attrition.

Among other donations, the U.K. offered 100,000 artillery rounds, hundreds of precision-guided missiles and a squadron of British-made Challenger 2 tanks, the first Western-designed main battle tanks destined for Ukraine, along with armored vehicles to service and repair them in the field. Denmark said it would give all 19 of its French-made Caesar howitzer artillery systems. Poland offered antiaircraft guns with 70,000 rounds of ammunition and Sweden promised 50 CV90 tracked infantry fighting vehicles and 12 modern Archer self-propelled 155 mm howitzers.

The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania offloaded their stores of Cold War-era howitzers, grenade launchers and other conventional arms left over from their decades as Soviet republics. Collectively, the donations they put forward Thursday are the kinds of equipment needed to wage a ground war over an active front line sprawling over hundreds of miles.

The announcement, officials in those countries said, reflected a growing consensus that the nearly-year-long conflict will continue for some time, with Russia and Ukraine too far apart to negotiate a peace. It was also an attempt to pile pressure on the host government for Friday’s meeting.

France this month pledged to provide AMX-10 RC, light tanks. Canada has said it will provide 200 armored personnel carriers.

The U.S. intends to announce a new aid package to Ukraine on Friday which will include Stryker armored fighting vehicles, a U.S. official said. The U.S. has no plans to send tanks to Ukraine any time in the near future. Abrams are “not off the table,” a U.S. official said, but won’t be approved any time soon.

Berlin, wary of escalating the conflict, is pushing back on a proposal, championed by Poland, for NATO allies to give Ukraine some of their German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks. Under that plan, Ukraine could receive as many as 100 such tanks, from various NATO allies, Poland says.

U.S. officials believe the Leopard tanks can help Ukraine confront a Russian offensive. “That’s why we are looking at modern, mechanized armored capabilities, and that’s why the focus on tanks, and Germany is the key to that capability because the most immediate need, the most accessible, useful capability are the Leopards,” said a senior U.S. defense official.

In a sign of the strains Germany’s hesitancy has created, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said his government could supply Ukraine with those battle tanks even if Germany doesn’t grant consent. Germany, like many countries, requires countries to seek its approval to re-export German-made military equipment.

Germany won’t allow Poland and other allies to give those tanks until Washington agrees to provide Ukraine with a U.S.-made equivalent, specifically M1 Abrams, aides to Mr. Scholz said.

U.S. officials said Abrams tanks are too complicated and expensive for Ukraine to run, compared with the German-made Leopard 2 tanks.

Those tensions erupted into public acrimony ahead of Friday’s meeting, with Germany’s chancellor at odds with other NATO leaders over whether the time has come to provide Ukraine with the alliance’s heaviest combat vehicles.

The debate over tanks comes as a consensus is growing within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that Ukraine could use more tanks and armored vehicles to retake territory from poorly equipped Russian soldiers, clustered into trenches that recall World War I. They would also signal to Moscow that the West’s support for Ukraine isn’t dwindling, as Vladimir Putin hoped, perhaps pressuring the Russian president to reassess his odds of success in an yearslong conflict.

NATO allies, together with Finland and Sweden that are seeking membership, have more than 2,000 Leopard tanks, which are probably the most successful modern tank design in the world, according to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. It is unclear however how many of them are battle-ready and could be sent to Ukraine.

Poland—which has offered 14 Leopard tanks, provided that other allies give some of theirs as well—now says it could proceed without German approval. Denmark and Finland are among the governments that are considering donating the tanks.

“Consent is a secondary issue. Either we will get this consent or we ourselves will do what must be done,” Mr. Morawiecki said late Wednesday. Germany, he added, “is the least proactive country out of the group, to put it mildly. We will continue pressuring the chancellor.”

A senior Polish government official said Warsaw believes that Mr. Scholz’s hesitance has isolated Germany in Europe and is diminishing his credibility, possibly forcing the German leader into compromising with its allies at the Friday meeting.

The dispute is flaring as NATO allies arrange a new round of arms shipments they see as pivotal in Ukraine’s struggle. Those weapons were once considered too difficult for Ukraine to handle or likely to trigger a dangerous Russian escalation of the conflict. Ukraine’s ability to manage complex systems, such as the U.S.-supplied Himars artillery systems, has eased some of these concerns.

Allies need to provide more such heavy weaponry, “because the war is at a pivotal stage,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday..

 “It means more armored vehicles,” he said. “It means battle tanks, as we’ve seen U.K. and France have already announced.”

British officials hoped their offer of Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine would prod Mr. Scholz into dropping his objections to giving the country Leopard 2 tanks.

So far, it hasn’t. The chancellor’s reluctance to send tanks derived from concerns related to German history, a desire to only act in consensus with the U.S. and other allies and domestic opinion, senior officials said.

Around 50% of Germans are against sending tanks to Ukraine, while only 38% are in favor, according to a recent survey by polling company Insa.

Mr. Scholz and other German politicians are acutely sensitive to the fact that Nazi tanks rolled across the territories of today’s Ukraine and Russia during World War II, these officials said.

Using German tanks to now attack Russia in the same area could give Mr. Putin an opening for a propaganda campaign against Germany and the West, especially if a German-made tank was captured and displayed for propaganda purposes, the officials said.

Germany is also concerned about escalating the conflict by providing equipment that Russia could find provocative. Those concerns have fallen increasingly out of favor in Washington, however, where U.S. officials have voiced frustration that Germany is seeking to follow the U.S., rather than show more leadership within Europe.

“How can you not get more escalatory? What are they thinking about?” Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) said Wednesday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “If Ukraine goes down, democracy starts going down, and Europe’s in danger…Germany ought to make its own decision.”