The Bundeswehr has about 370 Marder armored personnel carriers in service, of which 40 IFVs Germany has promised to provide to Ukraine. That is, the country will have to take these weapons from its own stocks.
This is reported by Der Spiegel.
On January 5, Berlin announced the supply of 40 IFVs to Kyiv. According to the promise of the German authorities, the delivery should be made by the end of March. According to Spiegel, the defense concern Rheinmetall has about 60 decommissioned Marder IFVs that can be converted, but modernization takes too long.
Spiegel writes that the commotion surrounding the transfer of IFVs to Ukraine is due to the fact that the Bundeswehr kept this fact a secret until the last. Before that, Germany refused several times to hand over these machines to Kyiv. Germanyʼs army and military industry were warned about this only at the beginning of 2023.
“Since the government has not prepared for the imminent delivery of the Marder IFVs, the Bundeswehr now has to empty its already poorly stocked warehouses. Far-sighted policy works in a different way,” Henning Otte, deputy chairman of the Defense Committee, criticized the actions of the German authorities.
- The Bundeswehr has about 370 Marder IFVs in service, but many of them are in need of major repairs. As of the end of November, their readiness was only 62%.