Germany does not give in to pressure from the allies and will continue to assess the shipment of Leopard tanks to Ukraine

• War in Ukraine Zelenski, at the Ramstein summit that will decide the shipment of Leopard: "We need tanks to stop evil"

Germany has resisted enormous pressure from its European allies and will not provide Leopard tanks to Ukraine for the time being.

The decision was announced by the new Defense Minister,

during a break in the meeting held at the US Ramstein airbase (western Germany) by the hundred countries that provide military aid to Ukraine.

Pistorius has indicated that "the number one priority is air defense" and that there was still "no decision" on the armored cars.

Berlin has ordered to "review" the stocks and availability of its Leopard tanks as a step prior to an eventual shipment.

The pressure on Chancellor

has been unparalleled.

All the senior officials of the European Union, from the President of the Council,

, to the Foreign Policy representative,

, not forgetting the NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, have endorsed the qualitative leap that the sending of those tanks suppose to be in the ukrainian battlefield.

Scholz, however, has ignored those calls.

He has remained faithful to his convictions, which he shares with his party, the Social Democrat.

For the foreign minister, adding powerful Western weapons of destruction dilutes the line that has allowed the conflict to be limited within the Ukrainian borders.

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Why Ukraine wants the Leopards?

• Writing: ALBERTO ROJAS

Why Ukraine wants the Leopards?

The parliamentary opposition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Bavarian Social Christian Union (CSU) will regret that Pistorius has followed Scholz's guidelines and does not start his mandate as Defense Minister, which he assumed yesterday, showing character.

The Leopards have been

in national politics.

The Conservatives joined Scholz's partners in the tripartite government, the Greens and the Liberals.

The majority of the population, less sensitive to the possibility that Germany would remain isolated in the EU and in NATO for not assuming military leadership, nevertheless approves the chancellor's caution.

Scholz has resisted to the end and despite the rebellion also instigated by

, which said it was willing to send the Leopard with or without the authorization of Germany, a sine qua non condition of the contract with the German manufacturer.

In a telephone conversation with US President Joe Biden, Scholz reportedly sought an escape route for the deliveries by making them subject to a similar step by the United States.

However, the German government today denied having made it a condition for the United States to send M1 Abrams type tanks and stressed that any decision to deliver weapons

This was stated by the spokesman for the German government, Steffen Hebestreit, who declared that "at no time has there been a requirement that one thing has to happen for the other to happen."

The Pentagon's response to the foreign minister's treatment was in any case negative.

The Leopard equivalent tank system, the Abrams, is too complicated and difficult for the Ukrainians to maintain, an explanation that military experts confirm.

Among other reasons, and perhaps the simplest, is because the Leopards run diesel and the Abrams run gas turbines, which complicates provisioning.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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