Spiegel: Germany to transfer scrapped Gepard machines to Ukraine in 2023
Germany will hand over to Ukraine next spring the last batch of seven Gepard self-propelled air defense systems, which were previously scheduled for decommissioning, the Spiegel newspaper reported on Friday, citing its sources.
“Germany will support Ukraine in the fight against the Russian army with seven more Gepard antiaircraft tanks,” the publication wrote. These SAMs are the last models stored in stockpiles and were to be scrapped. According to Spiegel, the transfer to Kiev will take place in spring after the equipment is repaired at the defence company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann.
“The federal government hopes that additional ammunition for these SAMs can also be supplied by then. The 35mm ammunition is currently in short supply. And while there are still stocks around the world, most of them were made in Switzerland, whose government wants to remain neutral and therefore does not issue any export permits,” reports Spiegel.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told RIA Novosti that “incessant large-scale aid to Kiev” was increasingly “drawing Western countries into the conflict on the side of the Kiev regime”. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine, said that Western countries supporting the Kiev regime were becoming a party to the conflict. He also noted that any cargo containing weapons for Ukraine would become a legitimate target for Russia. Russian presidential press secretary Dmitriy Peskov said that pumping Ukraine with weapons from the West did not contribute to the success of the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations and would have a negative effect.
Source: Der Spiegel
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