In order to increase the number of Leopard 2 in service with the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the allies are forced to come up with complicated schemes, since even allocating a brigade kit turned out to be quite a difficult task. But at the moment, Germany is working on an interesting, although not easy to implement option to purchase the Pz 87 tanks (Leopard 2A4 with elements of localization) in Switzerland.
These are preserved vehicles, which are kept by the Swiss army in the amount of 96 units. According to Blick, the Ministry of Defense of Germany and the country’s Minister of Economy have sent an official request for the purchase of these tanks, under the guarantee that they will not be transferred to Ukraine.
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Overall, the plan looks the following way: these Leopard 2 will actually become participants in the "circular exchange" and will be transferred to those countries that will strengthen Ukraine’s Armed Forces with own tanks. That is, formally, Swiss tanks will remain in the EU countries, and this is a rather elegant preservation of Switzerland's neutrality.
At the same time, this proposal still needs to receive the "green light" from the Swiss parliament. Where, as the article says, fierce discussions are expected, since the previous Swiss deputies’ initiative to return 30 decommissioned tanks was not supported.
Defense Express notes that Switzerland, according to available information, has already sold decommissioned tanks to Germany. Rheinmetall has purchased about fifty Leopard 2s. Moreover, Berlin has already demonstrated that it is possible to find an answer to Switzerland's "neutral" position. In particular, while the Swiss were talking about neutrality regarding Gepard ammunition re-export, the German Rheinmetall eventually got a contract for their production.
Also, the position of Switzerland is causing a certain irritation in the West itself, and the country can be reminded at any moment that it is extremely dependent on foreign weapons.
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