Stoltenberg and Pistorious hope to have a solution to sending tanks to Ukraine soon

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and German Defense Minister Boris Pistorious held a meeting on Tuesday in which the shipment of weapons to Ukraine was the main issue to be discussed. After the meeting, the NATO secretary expressed his confidence that a decision on sending tanks to Ukraine will soon be made and has urged the allies to speed up the delivery of heavy and more advanced weapons.

For his part, the German defense minister has said that his government will decide quickly on the tanks if a consensus is reached with the allied countries with which it has started talks. And he has assured that Germany will not stand in the way of other countries training Ukrainian troops while those talks continue.

German ministry sources have assured news agencies that Poland has already formally applied for approval to export 14 Leopard 2A4 tanks to Ukraine. A few days ago, the Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, assured that, if this approval is not approved, he will seek “an international coalition of countries with which to agree on the supply.”

In the meeting with Pistorious, Stoltenberg has pressured the government of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to allow other countries to send their German-made tanks to Ukraine, since under military procurement rules, it is Germany that must authorize any re-exports. But Scholz’s Social Democratic party has been holding back so far, worried about sudden moves that could see Moscow escalate further.

The NATO Secretary General has stated that we are “at a crucial moment in the war. We must provide heavier and more advanced systems to Ukraine, and we must do it faster.” In this sense, he has assured that “the consultations between the allies will continue and I am confident that we will soon have a solution.”