Switzerland agrees to sell back 25 Leopard tanks to Germany
Switzerland’s parliamentary Security Commission has voted in favour of decommissioning 25 Leopard tanks, which will be sold back to Germany to replenish stocks of the tanks in countries that have sent tanks to Ukraine.
‘Switzerland would thus be providing indirect military support to Ukraine for the first time,’ Switzerland’s SRF news channel reported commission member Maja Riniker as saying after the 9 March vote.
‘If we can help Ukraine indirectly in this way, I believe we also have a responsibility here to make our contribution to the security architecture of Europe,’ said Riniker, explaining that these were ‘mothballed’ tanks that had been in storage.
Her commission said, however, that the tanks could only be taken out of service if they were exported to Germany.
Switzerland has been under pressure from the United States and its allies to get around its constitutional commitments to neutrality and contribute arms to Ukraine.
Switzerland’s state news service Swissinfo reported, meanwhile, that the German defence ministry has pledged not to send the tanks it receives from Switzerland on to Ukraine.
In early March, Germany had asked Bern to sell some of its decommissioned Leopard 2 tanks in a deal that would replenish arsenals of countries sending tanks to Ukraine.
https://www.parlament.ch/press-releases/Pages/mm-sik-n-2023-03-28.aspx
