Authorities in Sweden, Norway and Finland on Wednesday opened the door to the possibility of sending Laopard tanks to Ukraine even though they have indicated that there is no plan for the time being.
«At the moment there are no preparations on the delivery of these tanks by Sweden, but this possibility is not excluded at a later date,» Defense Minister Pal Jonson told the daily ‘Svenska Dagbladet’.
Jonson had already indicated on Friday that, in general terms, there were no objections to this. On Wednesday, the German government finally confirmed that 14 such tanks would be sent to Ukraine and gave the go-ahead to other countries to take similar decisions after days of pressure. The Swedish Army has about 120 Leopard tanks.
For its part, the Norwegian government has indicated that it is also studying the possibility of transferring battle tanks, although no decisions have been taken for the moment, as reported by the newspaper ‘Dagens Naringsliv’, which points to the possible dispatch of 36 Leopard tanks by Oslo.
Shortly afterwards, the Finnish Foreign Minister, Pekka Haavisto, held talks during the day on the process of the country’s accession to NATO and other issues related to the war in Ukraine. He travelled to Riga for talks with Latvian President Egils Levits and Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics.
Regarding the Leopard shipment, Haavisto reiterated that the country has this type of tanks and that it is ready to participate in a «joint package shipment in which Germany will fortunately take part». «We are ready to participate in one way or another,» he said, as reported by the newspaper ‘Helsingin Sanomat’.
In this regard, he stressed that Finland has recently increased its military assistance to Ukraine and stressed that the latest aid package is valued at more than 400 million euros.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
