L’appaltatore della difesa svizzera Ruag Mro è autorizzato a vendere 71 carri armati di battaglia Leopard 1 in Germania. Tuttavia, i carri armati potrebbero non essere espressamente venduti in Ucraina. Questo è stato deciso dal governo federale mercoledì.
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/foreign-affairs/ruag-mro-may-sell-leopard-battle-tanks-to-germany/89424668
di BkkGrl
31 commenti
This is not neutrality. And an even bigger hypocritical stance from an arms manufacturer.
What if Germany sells them to Poland who gifts them to Ukraine. Or if Germany gifts them instead of selling them.
With all due respect to our Swiss neighbours, sometimes I really do want to push them off their high horse, to join us here in the real world, rather than the idealised version their worldview seems to exist in.
Same old nonsense again.
But no worries, the good old Leo 1 chassis are also needed for the new Rheinmetall Skynex air defence platform, so they will come in handy either way.
If they can’t be sold to Ukraine, can they be gifted?
How about just scrapping them for parts and selling those?
Poland did it with MIG-29 – provide some “spare parts” that those cheeky bastards immediately reassembled into working fighters.
Never Trust the swiss in case of armed forces.
And thats why countries stop buying from the Swiss
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Well they can buy these 71 from the swiss and sell/gift 75 from their own stockpile lok
Another reason to not buy Swiss arms.
Then what do Germany want with them?
Swiss tanks come in a box labeled “NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN WAR”
Every time this story pops up, the comments are flooded with uninformed outraged Redittors. This is the reason it’s happening, and it has nothing to do with neutrality:
In 2009 there was a popular vote to ban the export of weapons to conflict zones, because some Swiss-manufactured weapons allegedly somehow ended up in Africa. That law was championed by none others than the center-left Socialist Party and by the Greens, while the Right was against it. Hell, the original supporters of the law even wanted to ban all Swiss arms exports, period!
It’s fine. Germany will donate them to Poland. Poland will do the rest. Nothing wrong here.
Then Germany shouldn’t buy them
There you have it black on white, Switzerland is a security risk for the EU and should be shut out of all military cooperation or tenders. Bundeswehr has started this already and swiss defense companies need to be put out of business or whipped into submission if they are sacrificing ukranians for their egocentric bullshit games.
Swiss like wars. This is always an opportunity for them to make more money
Oh so they said cannot sell.
Did they say they cannot “loan them”, “rent them”, “Gift them” etc?
Not be SOLD to ukraine, you say?
So Germany can give 71 of *their own* Leopard 1 tanks to Ukraine.
Not necessarily that is what they can or will do (not even sure if they have 71 Leo 1s, they are quite old this days), but it’s definitely this kind of bypass that makes such clauses a joke.
Their cheese has almost as many holes as their moral stances.
So tanks built by Germany with German materials sold to Switzerland who then keep said tanks in storage eventually selling them back to Germany only to turn around to say “no Germany. You may not sell the tanks you built with your own materials for us which we sold back to you over to Ukraine because something something neutrality”.
Switzerland needs a slap.
In the future Germany will never buy anything from swiss arms maker again. They really fucked up.
The Swiss economy is built on banking blood money so Im completely unsurprised they don’t want to harm one of their largest clients.
Why does Germany need Leopard 1 tanks, if not as disposable weapon system to send eastward?
Is modern warfare going to be arranged with small battles with limited BR ala War Thunder?
How about donated?
Greetings from Switzerland! I’m not going to defend this Swiss rule, as I don’t support it. But I have some explanations for you to better understand how this rule came about and that the sell of these tanks is to be understood as progress:
1. Swiss neutrality today might to many seem – at best – outdated for today or – in the context of the popular reference point of WW2 – coward, and at worst for both periods opportunistic. But this tradition was established much earlier than that. And in the context of religious wars in Europe and also of WW1, neutrality of our in terms of language and religion divided country and the looser defensive alliance it was before was absolutely existential for the internal cohesion.
2. International laws on neutrality would allow you to sell weapons to countries in active wars if you treat both sides equally. I’d personally be happy to offer old tanks to Ukraine and Russia alike because Russia would have no way to get ammo and spare parts. However, Swiss laws on neutrality are stricter. These rules have not been instated to screw over Ukraine but because Swiss weapons sold to third countries have ended up in the civil war in Yemen, and also because pacifist movements in Switzerland were happy to seize the opportunity to form a coalition with conservative proponents of neutrality in this situation to harm the Swiss arms industry. But laws are a general-abstract matter, thus they also applied to exports to Ukraine now.
3. One or two years back the Swiss government (executive branch) didn’t allow the sell of these tanks at all because they considered it to be against the law (legislative branch). By selling the tanks with a re-export clause the government now leaves it up to the Germans to use the tanks to strengthen their own army and freeing up some capacity to give other tanks they already habe to Ukraine (or something similar together with a partner country such as Greece which has a big fleet of Leo A1s) or leave the breaching of laws or contract clauses to them while abiding to them theirselves.
Does the contract mention ‘presents’?
Pathetic swiss as always…
So is Germany just going to break them down and sell the parts to the one country currently using them? I am kinda reminded again that Switzerland is seems to be actively trying to kill its own weapon industry right now.