Germany's new defence minister has not agreed to supply tanks to Ukraine at Ramstein-8

We shall remind you that on the eve of the eighth summit at the Ramstein airbase, Volodymyr Zelenski directly approached the German government on German public television with a request to agree to supplies of Leopard.

But during another meeting of the Ukrainian defence contact group in Ramstein, the allies again failed to agree on supplies of Leopard 2 heavy tanks for the Ukrainian Armed Forces' offensive operations.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters that supplies of these tanks were still under discussion among Western partners.

Germany's new defence minister, Boris Pistorius, said that the German government did not yet have a decision on this issue. However, he said that all partner countries which have these tanks in service could start training Ukrainian tankers. He also assured that his country has no intention to specifically block the delivery. Berlin simply has no answer at the moment, but continues working in this direction.

When a decision has been made - it could be in a week, two weeks or a day - I want to be able to act quickly. This is why this morning I instructed my ministry to make an inventory of the various types of Leopard tanks we have in our armed forces as well as in industry," said Boris Pistorius.

Pistorius was also reluctant to answer the question whether Germany would grant Poland and other countries a licence to export German-made tanks. According to the defence minister, this decision is up to Chancellor Olaf Scholz. But the problem is that opinion in German society is roughly evenly divided on this issue, and this creates a tricky situation for Scholz.

According to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, Olaf Scholz allegedly said that he was ready to give the tanks only after the US agreed to send the Ukrainians their Abrams, while Washington expressed surprise at this, saying that this was an unrealistic demand, as these machines require a significant amount of fuel, an expensive maintenance system and it would take Ukrainian tankers a long time to master them.

US Defence Minister Lloyd Austin, who spoke at a press briefing at the end of Ramstein-8, responded to a question whether it was possible to unblock Germany's decision to supply Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks. He explained that there was no connection between the transfer of Abrams and Leopard tanks.

We shall remind you that German Leopard tanks are considered among the best in the world.