Ukraine is still hoping for heavy weapons, with Marder infantry fighting vehicles from Rheinmetall things could get moving again. However, the armaments group does not provide the vehicles directly for Ukraine.
According to its own statements, the armaments group Rheinmetall is currently modernizing more than two dozen Marder-type infantry fighting vehicles for a possible ring exchange in support of Ukraine. A company spokesman at the Unterlüß location in Lower Saxony said they had already "worked on" 30 of them in order to prepare them for the hoped-for sales. A total of around 100 pieces could be "prepared relatively easily". In mid-June, the company announced that six Marder armored personnel carriers had already been repaired.
Rheinmetall had offered to deliver the martens that had been decommissioned by the Bundeswehr and were to be reprocessed. The federal government has not yet decided according to the public status. Rheinmetall boss Armin Papperger assumes that the planned sales of old Marder tanks will soon be approved. "We are in daily contact with the Chancellery, there is will and pressure there," he said.
The spokesman explained that the aim was to hand over the Type 1A3 armored personnel carriers to other countries, which in turn could then supply their own armaments to the Ukrainian armed forces. Countries like the Czech Republic and Greece would then receive them as compensation if they in turn delivered old Soviet tanks from their stocks to Ukraine. There has recently also been international criticism of Germany for hesitancy in promised arms deliveries.
The Marder specimens in question are tanks from the 1970s and 1980s. Rheinmetall also wants to resell older versions of the Leopard 1 main battle tank: "We have 88 of them available." Because large parts of politics in the current war situation are in favor of exports of older military equipment to allied states, one is confident that the Federal Security Council will allow the business.
