German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has promised to supply Ukraine with its state-of-the-art air defence equipment. In his speech before the Bundestag on Wednesday, he said that Germany was going to send the IRIS-T system to Ukrainians.
According to him, thanks to such systems, Ukraine will be able to "protect the whole big city from russian air attacks," according to Deutsche Welle.
Scholz added that Germany had promised to provide Ukraine with surveillance radar capable of detecting enemy howitzers, mortars and jet artillery.
The Chancellor claims that Germany, together with the United States, will send multiple rocket launchers to Ukraine. These systems will not be able to attack russian territory.
The IRIS-T SLM is a ground-based SAM on a MAN SX 45 chassis with modified short-range guided air-to-air missiles with an infrared homing head. Range of a shot from vertical installation - to 40 km, limit of impression - 20 km. It can hit cruise missiles, planes, helicopters, projectile artillery, drones and bombs.
Last week Die Welt reported that Germany had reduced Ukraine's military support to a minimum over the past nine weeks and had not provided significant small arms since the end of March.
Vice Chancellor and German Economy Minister Robert Habeck has denied that his country does not supply or supplies too few weapons to Ukrainians. In an interview with the newspaper Welt am Sonntag, he said that right now the Ukrainian military is learning to use German howitzers Panzerhaubitze 2000. Soon these 155-mm howitzers will be delivered to Ukraine, quotes Gabeka Deutsche Welle.
Germany also promised Ukrainians self-propelled "Cheetah". The transfer of these units was announced on April 25, but they are expected to arrive in July. However, there is a problem with ammunition. The federal government has been aware of a shortage of ammunition for them since late February. Already on the second day of the full-scale war, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann announced that it could deliver equipment from a warehouse that could be brought to combat readiness relatively quickly. However, then Germany refused to supply due to lack of ammunition. They are produced by the Swiss company Oerlikon, which is part of the German group Rheinmetall. Swiss neutrality does not allow the supply of ammunition to combat zones.