United to win: Germany covertly delivers massive aid package to Ukraine, with HIMARS, tanks, and ammunition included
During the summer, Germany started covertly sending a large shipment of military assistance to Ukraine, which included heavy armored vehicles.
Merkur reported that.
Based on the article, towards the end of June and beginning of July, Germany covertly and discreetly delivered a substantial military shipment to Kyiv for Ukraine's armed forces.
It included 39 tanks supplied by the German defense industry and the Bundeswehr.
Last week, Ukraine received ten Leopard 1A5 battle tanks and twenty Marder infantry fighting vehicles from Germany, among other things. This brings the total number of Marder tanks supplied by Germany for the war in Ukraine to 120, while the number of repaired Leopard 1s stands at 50.
In addition to ammunition for the Leopard 1 and Marder, the following were added to the arsenal of the Ukrainian army:
- two Biber bridging tanks,
- two Dachs engineering tanks,
- two evacuation tanks,
- four Wisent 1 demining tanks.
Additionally, Germany has provided an extra IRIS-T SLM air defense system (previously three) and another IRIS-T SLS air defense system (previously one) to safeguard crucial infrastructure and urban areas against potential air attacks from Russia.
Three HIMARS multiple rocket launcher systems also appeared in the list of delivered weapons. The Bundeswehr does not have HIMARS in service but previously transferred to Ukraine four technically very similar rocket launcher systems.
For reference:
Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Germany has become the leader among European countries in the amount of military aid provided.
Within the Security Capacity Building Initiative Fund framework, Germany allocated approximately 7.1 billion euros for military aid to Ukraine in 2024 alone. This includes Berlin's contributions to the European Peace Fund (EPF).
As of the end of May, the German government reported on allocations for military aid to Ukraine approximately:
- 5 billion euros in 2023,
- around 1.6 billion euros in 2022.
An additional approximately €2.9 billion has been allocated in the first two years of the significant supply war, which will not arrive until 2025-2028.
Germany has already delivered approximately 5.2 billion euros of equipment from its armed forces stockpile (estimated cost to replace transferred equipment).
Also, almost 9,000 Ukrainian soldiers underwent military training in Germany, which cost approximately 282 million euros.
It was also reported that Germany, taking into account the third Patriot air defense system, which will soon be delivered, will transfer to Ukraine a quarter of its stock of these anti-aircraft missile systems.
On July 8, Germany announced the provision of a new military aid package to Ukraine.
