German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced the imminent delivery of further weapons to Eastern European allies who will in turn send arms deliveries to Ukraine.
The government had "now concretized these agreements with several states to the extent that they will be directly linked to shipments," the German leader said during questioning in the Bundestag on Wednesday, without providing further details.
According to the plan, Eastern European partners who send Soviet-era weapons to Ukraine will receive arms deliveries from Germany in return. The argument goes that it's easier for Ukrainian soldiers to handle Soviet-era equipment, which they are used to, instead of modern Western weapons.
Germany has conducted talks with the Czech Republic, Greece, Poland and Slovenia on the deal. "We have invested a lot of energy for this to actually happen," Scholz said, adding that implementation of the plan was set to follow in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, the chancellor didn't comment on the opposition's demand that Germany deliver supply transport and infantry combat vehicles directly to Ukraine.
Instead, he confirmed that Germany would only be supplying the kind of weapons which other allies of Ukraine were sending. "It is a leadership decision that we have taken together so that we don't go it alone," he stressed.
