Two weeks ago, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz turned the West’s policy on sending heavy weapons to Ukraine on its head when he announced the delivery of 14 Leopard 2 battle tanks, and gave authorization for other countries who have the heavy armor in their arsenals to do likewise. APĪ NATO coalition to provide Leopard tanks to Ukraine has been set in motion, but it is not moving at the pace that Berlin would like. As a result, 12 soldiers were wounded, with one suffering serious injuries.German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (left) holds a model of a Leopard tank with his Ukrainian counterpart Oleksii Reznikov in Kyiv on Tuesday. He added that the soldiers would only be given a rundown on the most important aspects of the tanks and not a full in-depth training.Īlongside the 14 tanks that will be delivered to Ukraine, a further five have been put in reserve in case anything happens to the tanks during the training.Īn example of what can go wrong was given in a separate incident on Wednesday when two Puma infantry fighting vehicles crashed into each other during a training session in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. Pistorius said that the training of Ukrainian soldiers to use the Leopard 2 tanks would begin soon in the small northern German town of Munster.

It has regularly failed to hit the 2% defense spending budget target set by NATO and was €20 billion short of reaching ammunition stockpile targets even before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Germany has traditionally shied away from high defense spending in recent years. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

First troop visit for Germany's defense minister

German army modern tanks