The German concern Rheinmetall, which manufactures Leopard tanks, has promised to deliver 20 Marder infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine in the near future, writes the publication Welt from Germany.
Twenty combat vehicles will be sent to Kyiv in addition to another 40 vehicles that were promised earlier. The equipment is planned to be handed over by the end of summer.
Initially, Rheinmetall planned to supply Ukraine with combat vehicles from the manufacturer's warehouse. An additional two dozen armored personnel carriers were found in Bundeswehr warehouses. The German authorities decided to hand them over to Kyiv.
In the first days of the counter-offensive, which began on June 5-6, Ukraine lost about 17 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, four Leopard tanks, as well as three American Oshkosh wheeled armored vehicles, according to the data of the Dutch site Oryx, which keeps a count of documented losses of equipment.
Against this background, the United States decided to urgently allocate a new package of military aid to Kyiv worth 325 million dollars, wrote Voice of America journalist Carla Babb, citing an unnamed official from the Pentagon. According to her, new Stryker and Bradley armored vehicles will be provided to Ukraine instead of the lost vehicles. The aid will be allocated through the mechanism of the Presidential Drawdown Authority or directly from the U.S. military warehouses.
Ex-deputy head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry and former ambassador to Germany Andrii Melnyk called on Berlin to triple the supply of Leopard 2 tanks due to the counter-offensive.
"Each Leopard 2 is literally worth its weight in gold for a decisive offensive," Melnyk said in an interview with the Tagesspiegel newspaper.
He also stated that Germany should make a "strategic decision" regarding the supply of Western fighter jets to Ukraine and hand over to Kyiv part of more than 130 German aircraft.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that Germany would not be able to replace every tank that Ukraine loses in the course of the operation.
"What we will do is increase the supply of refurbished Leopard 1A5 tanks from July. By the end of the year, there will be more than 100 of them," Pistorius said.
In February, Germany approved the delivery of 178 Leopard 1A5 tanks to Kyiv.
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