”Our tanks are the worst in Europe.” The head of the German Foreign Ministry says that the country was not preparing for war

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany, Annalena Baerbock, said in an interview with Radio Liberty that her country lived "without the expectation of a war in Europe", which is why the reserves of the German army are obsolete.

"We thought and believed that Europe would live in peace, and therefore spent less money on our own military defense. [...] We thought we would never use tanks again. I mean our military tanks are the worst in Europe you can imagine. This has been the case in recent decades, because Europe was built to live in peace. Itʼs old-fashioned, and our weapons stockpile right now is not what it should be, except for some air defense parts,” Baerbock said.

She also reminded that Germany supplies Ukraine with modern weapons, in particular artillery.

Germany is armed with Leopard 1 tanks (since 1965) and their updated version Leopard 2 (since 1979). Ukraine can be supplied with the Leopard 1A5 — this is the fifth modernization of the first series Leopards, which was made in 1987.

• The German government has given permission to sell 100 Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled artillery installations to Ukraine. The deal is valued at €1.7 billion. The production of all 100 howitzers is designed for several years, so it is not known for sure when the Ukrainian Armed Forces will receive the first batch of equipment.
• Before that, Germany handed over three MARS multiple-launch fire systems to Ukraine. In total, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will receive from Berlin 30 Gepard installations with 60,000 shells and ten self-propelled guns.