Germany Promises to Increase Production of Weapons for Ukraine Promptly
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has acknowledged delays in the supply of weapons to Ukraine, but assured that production capacity will be increased as soon as possible, Deutsche Welle reports.
"We have a well-known problem: the defence industry is not keeping up with the demand in certain areas," the minister said in an interview with ZDF on Tuesday evening.
According to the German politician, this applies to both ammunition and air defence systems, but the defence industry is increasing capacity "wherever it can".
"It's a question of speed, and you can't have unlimited influence on speed," Pistorius explained.
He added that it takes time to open a plant and build up the necessary inventory to be able to produce quickly and smoothly.
As an example, the German defence minister cited the production of ammunition for Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, which had to be restored in the country. According to him, although this was done relatively quickly, it still took six months.
Pistorius also reminded that Germany is the second largest supplier of weapons to Ukraine after the United States. "We supply everything we can," he assured.
As The Gaze previously reported, Germany's largest arms concern, Rheinmetall, has received an order to supply artillery shells to Ukraine worth about €142 million.
In late May 2023, Ukraine asked the German government to provide Taurus cruise missiles with a range of up to 500 kilometres.
However, in early October, sources in government circles in Berlin and Kyiv said that Germany had no plans to supply Ukraine with long-range Taurus missiles in the near future. Germany did not send Kyiv an official refusal, but made it clear privately that no Taurus missiles would be delivered for the time being. Chancellor Olaf Scholz leaves this option open for the future, but at the moment, the delivery is considered extremely unlikely.
In particular, Scholz explained that his country is delaying the decision to supply Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine because it will "very carefully check every solution, what works, what makes sense, what our contribution can be".
At the same time, during the bilateral talks, Kyiv was made to understand that Germany wants to do everything possible to strengthen Ukraine's air defence and will probably supply additional ammunition for the Patriot system.
Currently, Ukraine uses long-range Storm Shadow missiles supplied by the UK, as well as the French equivalent of these weapons, the SCALP.