Some time ago, the Bundestag, with a large majority, called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (both SPD) to send Ukraine more than solidarity greetings and a few old rocket-propelled grenades.

Parliament decided at the end of April that the Ukrainian army should also be given “heavy weapons and complex systems” for its resistance against the Russian attackers.

This should also go through the so-called "ring exchange", whereby several NATO partners would quickly deliver their older tanks of Soviet design to the Ukraine and quickly receive replacements from Germany.

Peter Carstens

Political correspondent in Berlin

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The advantage for Berlin: You would not have to send Kyiv itself any or only a few heavy weapons such as artillery, tanks or rocket launchers and thus anger Moscow less.

Some adhered to the proposal, the Czech Republic and Poland, for example, quickly delivered their T-72 stocks to the Ukrainians, and Poland alone brought around 300 main battle tanks across the border.

Warsaw hoped that Germany would quickly replenish the depleted depots of Polish armored troops.

"We're currently in talks, and that's happening very quickly now," Lambrecht said on April 21.

However, the talks are dragging on.

On June 1st, Scholz declared in the plenary session that "a first exchange of rings with our Czech friends" had been initiated.

According to Scholz, the Ukraine will get Soviet main battle tanks, familiar equipment, and “we will provide a replacement”.

He also spoke to his Greek colleague.

He, Scholz, had "agreed with Prime Minister Mitsotakis that Greece would supply infantry fighting vehicles from former NVA stocks and that we would fill up the Greek stocks with German infantry fighting vehicles".

Not a single tank from Germany

But nothing has come of all this so far.

So far, not a single tank from German stocks has replaced its eastern neighbors.

As the Ministry of Defense admitted on Wednesday after repeated inquiries, there is currently not even an initial agreement.

Negotiations with Slovenia, Slovakia, Greece, the Czech Republic and Poland are said to be ongoing.

At the end of June, Lambrecht criticized those who had doubts about the success of the plenary session.

One is, she said on June 22 in the plenary session, “in good exchange with Slovakia, with Poland, with the Czech Republic and with Greece.

I sometimes read that it bumps there.

The responsible minister in the relevant ministry in the other country is not aware of any difficulties.

We don't let that impress us." A month later, almost the same answer:

In addition to the usual legal and bureaucratic procedures, which show little regard for what is happening in the war, the negotiations could also be so difficult because Lambrecht's offers are so bad.

On Tuesday, for example, it became known from the Polish parliament what the SPD politician had offered her Polish colleague: as a replacement for around 300 Soviet T-72 main battle tanks, Germany offered to supply 20 Leopards of an older version.

But by no means immediately, but from April 2023 one per month, later three tanks per month.

"20 for almost 300", Polish politicians and the CDU defense politician Roderich Kiesewetter were outraged.

He said: "We are clearly gambling away the trust that has been built up over the years, and as a member of parliament, I feel completely deceived when weeks ago immediate implementation was spoken of at the same time." Kiesewetter described the policy of the traffic light coalition as "a failure to provide assistance to Ukraine".

It is a loss of reputation for Germany in Eastern Europe, "every day that is not delivered costs lives in Ukraine".

Experts in Great Britain and the United States believe that there is a political intention behind this, in addition to incompetence and an economy of scarcity.

According to the British “Guardian” and the “New York Times” this week, Berlin only wants to deliver enough to Ukraine that Russia cannot simply win.

The decision to deliver heavy weapons, not just a few helmets and old rocket-propelled grenades from moldy boxes, was also supported by the Social Democrats at the end of April.

In the plenary session, party chairman Lars Klingbeil praised almost pathetically that there is now "a clear signal to Vladimir Putin and a clear signal to the people of Ukraine that we as the German Bundestag are on the right side of history".

In the meantime, the "ring exchange" has become a symbol of disappointment with Berlin.

The federal government has started to supply heavy weapons itself.

However, this seems to be primarily for political self-defense: Five months after the start of the Russian attack on Ukraine, the western continent's strongest economic power was without a total of seven self-propelled howitzers.

And even that was accompanied by the minister's lamentations that she would soon achieve the utmost of what was possible.

Regarding the weighting of the German howitzer delivery, the following can be said: Ukraine initially had about 200 such weapon systems and a similar number of multiple rocket launchers.

According to Western estimates, Russia has around 1,300 self-propelled howitzers deployed in the theater of war, along with a similar number of multiple rocket launchers.

The delivery volume of military goods from Germany is manageable overall.

According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, even distant Canada has sent Ukraine more armaments.

Lambrecht had recently announced that he wanted to deliver three more howitzers, not without whining: "I'm already going to the absolute limit of what is responsible."