DW: Cyclic arms exchange based on… Germany – What it signals, who wins

For many months it was a concept identified with German policy towards it Ukrainian. At the same time, it became synonymous with German hesitation and delays: the circular exchange of equipment systems (Ringtausch). The idea is this: Germany supplies tanks and other heavy weaponry not directly to Ukraine, but to its member states NATO. These countries then deliver weapons systems to Ukraine from their own stockpiles. The benefit: Germany avoids directly sending heavy weapons to Ukraine but at the same time shows solidarity with the country under attack while helping to modernize the armed forces of NATO allies.

The process has gone through various phases for almost half a year. At first it was completely dysfunctional, then it started working sometimes with obstacles. Poland completely rejected the possibility of such an exchange, in the case of Greece it took months for the details to be finalized. In the meantime, in other Eastern European countries, the exchange of equipment systems is considered successful. Time for a midterm review. DW spoke to government representatives and experts from the countries involved.

Poland: Unattractive offers

Poland is among the most active countries in supporting the Ukrainian military, offering over 250 Soviet-made tanks to the neighboring country. But this created a significant gap in the Polish armed forces. One solution could be an arms exchange with Germany. Except that something like that has not thrived. The Polish Ministry of Defense, in response to a question from DW, said that there are currently no ongoing discussions with Germany. Initially, Germany made an offer to Poland of 20 armored Leopard 2A4s, which it would however deliver after a year. She was also willing to hand over 100 old Leopard 1A5s or used Marders. “The Polish government was not satisfied with this offer,” Justyna Gotkowska of the Center for Oriental Studies in Warsaw told DW. “Firstly Poland wanted to get a whole battalion with at least 44 tanks and secondly they wanted to get tanks of a newer generation. The Polish army is in an accelerated phase of modernization and sees no point in investing in older equipment.”

At the same time, Warsaw is buying hundreds of American tanks of the latest Abrams type. Also, just in July, the Polish Ministry of Defense signed an agreement to purchase 180 modern K2 tanks from South Korea. “Berlin’s policy of military support for Ukraine is judged in Warsaw to be anything but sufficient in relation to Germany’s real military capabilities,” the Polish expert also notes.

Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia: The satisfied partners

These three countries – mainly the Czech Republic and Slovakia – are also among the European countries that most actively support Ukraine. Slovakia already delivered an air defense system to Kyiv in the spring and received in return a Patriot system from Germany and the Netherlands. In the summer it also delivered 30 tanks to neighboring Ukraine. The Czech Republic, for its part, delivered 40 armored vehicles. Both received 15 and 14 armored Marders respectively from Germany. Slovenia, for its part, sent 28 armored vehicles to Ukraine and received 43 German personnel carriers.

“In the Czech Republic, the circular exchange of armament systems is positively valued and considered beneficial,” observes the Czech political scientist Jiri Peche. The same in Slovakia, as Grigory Mesheznikov from the Institute of Public Affairs in Bratislava reports to DW, who however notes: “Germany must understand that Russia threatens the freedom of all of us. It would be good for Berlin to take a leading role in Europe in terms of supporting Ukraine.”

German Marder already in Greece

In the case of Greece, the circular exchange of armaments took months but is now in full swing: 40 German Marders are being received by the Greek army, some have already been delivered. Greece is correspondingly sending 40 Soviet-made tanks to Ukraine. The German Marder will be used in the Evros region. “The Marders will be directed to the Evros because that is where the Armed Forces judge that they will be more useful,” said Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis during the recent press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Athens. And all this at a time when Evros often occupies the international press on the one hand because of the alleged illegal repatriation of migrants and on the other hand because of Turkish threats against Greek territorial integrity.

As Antonis Kamaras, a scientific associate specializing in defense issues at ELIAMEP and coordinator of the Oxford Greek Diaspora Project, said in an interview with DW, the importance of the delivery of German Marders to Greece is not so much “in strengthening the Greek Defense”. The greatest “political value” of this exchange is that “the Greek government invests in the concept of solidarity”. For the Greek expert, the use of the port of Alexandroupouli as an intermediate station for the transfer of equipment, supplies or ammunition to Ukraine is of greater importance in this case, which, as he points out, could in fact burden Greek-Russian relations in the future. Antonis Kamaras also considers the reasons why Germany does not seek the direct shipment of weapon systems to Ukraine to be understandable. “The image of German tanks returning to the same battlefields as World War II remains definitely taboo for the German government. This is German history. As an outside observer and as a Greek who knows the images of the German occupation in Greece, I can understand this taboo,” says Antonis Kamaras.

Germany: The end of post-war taboos?

Hans-Peter Bartels, a Social Democratic politician and head of the German Society for Security Policy (GSP), Germany’s oldest policy think tank, sees the cyclical exchange of weapons systems as a “temporary phase of German politics” which is gradually changes. German deployments of heavy artillery or rocket launchers already in Ukraine prove this. “Yesterday’s skepticism becomes today’s ‘maybe’ and will become tomorrow’s ‘we are proud’. As the war continues, the German line also changes,” he says characteristically. Hans-Peter Bartels does not think that the German idea of ​​”Ringtausch” really helped Ukraine. After all, it has been shown in the field that Western weapons are more effective than the old Soviet ones. Nor is the argument that Ukrainian soldiers are unfamiliar with Western weapons any longer, because in the meantime they are being trained to use Western weaponry.

Finally, Slovakian political scientist Milan Nitsch of the German Association for Foreign Policy (DGAP) sees the idea of ​​a cyclical arms exchange only as a “precursor” of a possible new German policy – ​​not only towards Ukraine. “I estimate that Germany will complete the change of era (Zeitenwende) and eventually develop into a player, promoting the strengthening of the eastern flank of NATO and the EU.”

DW

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