German weapons played a "decisive" role in Ukraine's recent successful counteroffensive, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said, expressing little hope that battlefield failures will persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to end his war. Politico.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference with Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili at his office in Berlin, Scholz defended German arms shipments to Ukraine against increased critics that his government should also send Leopard tanks and Marder combat vehicles to support Kyiv.

According to the government list, Berlin supplied 10 Panzerhaubice 2000 howitzers, 24 Gepard anti-aircraft tanks and various light weapons.

"It can be said that the very weapons that Germany has now provided to Ukraine are decisive in the development of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, and they also made the difference" in the battle, Scholz said.

The chancellor added that Germany will soon deliver the IRIS-T air defense missile system to Ukraine, which is "modern equipment that even the Bundeswehr does not use."

But Scholz once again ruled out further deliveries of tanks and combat vehicles to Ukraine, insisting that such steps must be agreed between allies and that no other country is sending Western combat tanks to Ukraine.

"It remains the view of the entire German government – ​​all its members and the parties that support it – that there will be no German unilateral action," he said.

German Foreign Minister Analena Baerbock appealed to Germany and other allies not to further delay their decision to send tanks to Ukraine.

"As far as modern battle tanks are concerned, decisions can only be made jointly, in a coalition and at the international level," Baerbock told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. "But at the decisive stage that Ukraine is currently in, I don't think this is a decision that should be delayed for long."

Kuleba disappointed with Germany: We need weapons, not excuses