Germany Press release: German Chancellor Scholz blocks heavy weapons deliveries to Ukraine

German Bild newspaper write on Thursday that the chancellor’s office has removed several heavy weapons from the list of arms aid to Ukraine.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at a news conference Tuesday night that it had asked German arms manufacturers for a list of weapons they could urgently deliver to Ukraine.

“Ukraine has made its choice from this list, and now we can give it money to buy these weapons,” Scholz said at the news conference.

According to Bild, the list provided by the arms manufacturers in mid-March included several heavy weapons that Ukraine has said it needs, such as Boxer transport equipment, PhZ 2000 armored vehicles and Leopard 2 armored vehicles.

According to the newspaper, the list provided by the arms manufacturers had shrunk from 48 to 24 pages as it passed through the Office of the Federal Chancellor, and contained only three different types of weapons out of the fifteen requested by Ukraine.

German has been publicly criticized for not doing everything possible to help Ukraine. Germany, for example, has been interpreted as slowing down arms aid supplies so as not to provoke Russia.

On Wednesday, however, the German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said, there are no taboos in the German arms aid to Ukraine. According to him, Germany is reviewing what kind of extra maintenance the Marder and Leopard tanks will require before they can be used in Ukraine.

The Guardian by Baerbock also said that Germany has not always reported on all its arms aid to Ukraine.

“We have supplied anti-tank missiles, Stinger’s[ilmatorjuntaohjuksia] and other things we haven’t talked about in public to make these deliveries a success, ”Baerbock said, according to The Guardian.