‘Extremely dangerous decision’: Russia scorns Germany over tanks

Germany’s transfer to ship Leopard 2s to Kyiv will result in ‘everlasting escalation’, says Russian embassy in Berlin.

Moscow has slammed Berlin’s transfer to produce Ukraine with battle tanks and accused Germany of abandoning its “historic accountability to Russia” arising from Nazi crimes in World Battle II.

The Russian embassy in Germany stated on Wednesday the choice to ship 14 German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv and permit allies to re-export the identical fashions would worsen the warfare in Ukraine to a brand new degree and result in “everlasting escalation”.

“This extraordinarily harmful determination takes the battle to a brand new degree of confrontation and contradicts the statements of German politicians concerning the unwillingness of the Federal Republic of Germany to be drawn into it,” Ambassador Sergei Nechayev stated.

“It destroys the remnants of mutual belief, causes irreparable injury to the already deplorable state of Russian-German relations, and casts doubt on the potential for their normalisation within the foreseeable future.”

Kyiv has for months known as for Western tanks, arguing they’re desperately wanted to present troops firepower and mobility to interrupt via Russian defensive strains and recapture occupied territory within the east and south.

Moscow has repeatedly stated Western-supplied tanks will “burn” and dismissed ideas they’ll have an effect on the result of the 11-month battle, warning they’ll solely extend Ukrainian struggling.

Germany’s transfer is anticipated to pave the way in which for Poland, Finland and a bunch of different European nations to supply Ukraine tanks from their very own shares of Leopard 2s.

“With the approval of the management of Germany, battle tanks with German crosses will once more be despatched to the ‘jap entrance’, which is able to inevitably result in the deaths of not solely Russian troopers, but additionally the civilian inhabitants,” Nechayev stated.

The UK has already pledged to ship 14 of its Challenger 2 battle tanks to Kyiv, whereas the USA is poised to reverse course and provide Ukraine with greater than 30 of its personal M1 Abrams.