BERLIN — Western defense officials on Friday failed to reach an agreement on exporting German- or American-made battle tanks to Ukraine, setting back Ukraine’s hopes of quickly getting weapons it sees as crucial to its defense against an expected new Russian offensive.
At the end of more than five hours of talks at the U.S.-led meeting of Ukraine’s allies at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, the U.S. defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, told reporters that Germany had not yet decided whether to allow its Leopard 2 tanks to be sent to Ukraine. Washington has been reluctant to send its own M1 Abrams tanks, and Mr. Austin added that he had no announcement on whether that stance would change.
Kyiv has been pleading for hundreds of modern Western battle tanks to reinforce its battered fleet of Soviet-era armor. Britain recently agreed to send a small number of its Challenger 2 tanks, in part, it said, to encourage other countries to overcome their months of resistance to donating tanks.
Ukrainian officials had been hopeful that a new deal would be announced on Friday to send Germany’s Leopard 2 main battle tank to the battlefield, or at least to allow other countries with those German-made tanks to send them to Ukraine.
But German and American officials negotiated on the matter for days, without success. And the broader circle of 54 countries were unable to devise a plan for other countries to send their own Leopard 2’s, which would require Germany’s approval.
American and German officials made a point to dismiss any suggestion of acrimony in the impasse, emphasizing they could still someday send tanks and that they had agreed on other efforts to help Ukraine. Mr. Austin maintained that the meeting’s attendees were “pushing hard” to meet Ukraine’s needs for tanks and armored vehicles, and his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, said Germany would offer training on its Leopard tanks and begin an inventory of its tanks, in case of a future deal.
In recent weeks, the West has broken one taboo after another, agreeing to send Patriot missile systems and armored fighting vehicles, despite earlier fears that Russia would see the provision of those weapons as a provocation. But tanks are more powerful battlefield weapons, and likelier to be seen as an escalation.
With concerns growing over an anticipated Russian offensive in the spring or earlier, Britain and other countries pushed for the tanks, with several publicly prodding Germany to make a move.
Pentagon officials have argued that it makes little sense to send the Abrams tanks to Ukraine at this time, because they run on jet fuel rather than diesel and are hard to maintain. U.S. officials are also concerned that Russia might view them as a sign of U.S. escalation, which could undercut the Biden administration’s efforts to avoid a broader conflict.
For its part, Germany has been reluctant to send in some of its Leopard 2 tanks without Washington’s pledging to send at least a token number of its Abrams tanks.
The absence of an agreement was a setback for Ukraine, whose president, Volodymyr Zelensky, had explicitly appealed to those gathered to send tanks.
“Hundreds of thank-yous are not hundreds of tanks,” he told the gathering via live video earlier on Friday, speaking in English. “All of us can use thousands of words in discussions, but I cannot use words instead of guns.”
He stressed the urgency of Ukraine’s need. “Time,” he said, “remains a Russian weapon.”
Although allies in Europe had been piling pressure on Germany to allow other nations to re-export their own Leopard tanks to Ukraine, Germany’s new defense minister, Boris Pistorius, suggested that some countries might be more worried about provoking Russia than they were letting on.
“There is no unified consensus,” he told reporters. “The impression that has occasionally been created that there is a united coalition and that Germany is standing in the way is wrong.”
Poland, which has been especially vocal on the need to send more powerful weapons, and Finland say they will supply their Leopard tanks if Germany approves.
“Arming Ukraine in order to repel the Russian aggression is not some kind of decision-making exercise,” Poland’s foreign minister, Zbigniew Rau, wrote on Twitter on Friday, in reaction to the absence of an agreement. “Ukrainian blood is shed for real. This is the price of hesitation over Leopard deliveries. We need action, now.”
