FILE PHOTO: A Ukrainian serviceman holds a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher at fighting positions outside the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine February 24, 2022. REUTERS/Maksim Levin
February 26, 2022
(Reuters) -Germany has approved the delivery of 400 RPGs from the Netherlands to Ukraine, the defence ministry in Berlin said, confirming a shift in policy after Berlin faced criticism for refusing to send weapons to Kyiv, unlike other Western allies.
“The approval has been confirmed by the chancellery,” a spokesman for the defence ministry said on Saturday. The rocket-propelled grenades come from stocks of the German military.
Germany has a long-standing policy of not exporting weapons to war zones, rooted partly in its bloody 20th-century history and resulting pacifism. Countries aiming to onpass German weapons exports need to apply for approval in Berlin first.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had repeatedly referred to this policy in recent weeks when refusing to deliver lethal weapons to Ukraine.
Kyiv’s ambassador to Germany on Saturday urged Berlin to join the Netherlands and supply Ukraine with Stinger air defence rockets.
“Damn it, it’s finally time to help us,” Andriy Melnyk told Reuters in an interview at the Ukrainian embassy.
“We need air defence and we need a no fly zone,” Melnyk said.
Earlier on Saturday, the Dutch government said in a letter to parliament that it will supply 200 air defence rockets to Ukraine as quickly as possible.
Berlin also still has to decide about a request by Estonia that wants to pass on old GDR howitzers to Ukraine. Finland had bought the howitzers in the 90s after the fall of the Berlin wall, and later re-sold them to Estonia.
Germany’s offer in late January to supply 5,000 military helmets to Ukraine to help defend against a potential Russian invasion was dismissed by Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko as “a joke”. Berlin has also handed over a field hospital to Kyiv.
(Reporting by Sabine Siebold, Andreas Rinke, Riham Alkousaa, Oliver Ellrodt; Editing by John Chalmers and Ros Russell)
