Switzerland allows the sale of Leopard 1 tanks to Germany on condition that they are not transferred to Ukraine (militarnyi.com)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[-] [email protected] 18 points 4 days ago

I read this as the Swiss wanting to send tanks to Ukraine but it's illegal. So they send tanks to Germany and Germany sends their old tanks to Ukraine.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago

What old tanks though? We have not been using the Leo 1 for decades now. There aren't any in active service, all that were left in Germany have already been given to Ukraine or are made ready to be given to Ukraine.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

This really baffles me. What does Germany want with a bunch of obsolete Leopard 1s anyway? I guess they could break them down for parts and then send parts they already had to Ukraine, allowing Ukraine to repair some of their damaged Leopard 1s.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

I doubt that would be allowed with the sales agreement. Allthemore baffling, Switzerland really fucked themselves over there

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

A lot of speculation in the comments here but there's some context/details missing.

"Germany" didn't buy the tanks but the German company Rheinmetall
While the price isn't known, another company previously bought 25 of those tanks from RUAG for lousy 500€ a piece and then didn't even bother to come pick them up, so I assume Rheinmetall got a similar deal
Lots of countries still use them, Greece even wants to enlarge and upgrade their fleet of Leopard 1, they're still in demand and with a purchase price of 500€ and a bit of repairs there's probably a ton of money to be made

So my guess is this has nothing to do with Ukraine, just a company seeing a business opportunity.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

In 2023, the Swiss government prohibited the sale of the battle tanks to Germany out of concerns that they would be transferred to Ukraine. Swiss law prohibits the delivery of war materiel to countries involved in armed conflicts.