US and Germany at Impasse Over Sending Tanks to Ukraine Ahead of Key Defense Meeting

Germany and the United States are at odds over whether to send tanks to Ukraine ahead of a key meeting of western defense leaders in Germany on Friday.

German officials have indicated they won’t send their Leopard tanks to Ukraine, or allow any other country with the German-made tanks in their inventory to do so, unless the US also agrees to send its M1 Abrams tanks to Kyiv — something the Pentagon has said for months it has no intention of doing.

The tank standoff comes amid a much larger debate between the US and its European allies over whether to send increasingly sophisticated weaponry to Ukraine, including longer-range missiles that would allow Ukraine to hit targets as far as 200 miles away.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is in Germany this week to meet with the country’s new Defense Minister Boris Pistorious and to hold the eighth meeting of about 50 defense ministers to discuss capabilities to provide to Ukraine ahead of an expected Russian spring offensive.

On the freezing frontlines in Ukraine as winter war grinds on Defense officials say one priority of Friday’s Ukraine Defense Contact Group is pressuring Germany to give or allow other countries to commit German-made leopard tanks to Ukraine.

The Biden administration is hoping to find a way to break the impasse and reach a compromise between the US and Germany on the issue of sending tanks to Ukraine. It remains to be seen if the two sides can come to an agreement before the meeting of defense leaders on Friday.