A QUESTION OF GERMAN INTELLIGENCE?

January 15, 2023 -Durt Fibo

In December, Germany informed the world that it had arrested an employee in the BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst -the foreign intelligence service) on suspicion of having passed classified information to Russia. That is, an active spy. Later that same month, at least one other member of the BND was apprehended. The case -or cases- had been described as “very serious” by German Foreign Ministry spokespersons. The always inept Defense Minister, Christine Lambrecht, quietly scribbled a resignation letter, and will probably be gone within a week.

The above events might well contain answers to an even more “serious” conundrum; As Russian aerial attacks continue to destroy Ukraine, on the ground it has been battling to capture what remains of Soledar, as the key to open Bakhmut, barely 5 miles away, but a crossroads city. Both the stench of retreats and defeats, and the Soviet-era power plotting, have seen the Russians attacking out of the normal military pattern -with conscripts and Wagner zeks charging in relentless waves, only followed up by heavy hardware afterwards. In standard formulas, the infantry follows the tanks. And the Russians are fighting for this small town like it was Stalingrad. Perhaps Vladdie dreams of naming it Putinburg if he survives.

But the inversion of the fighting order has constricted the Ukrainians, and they see only endless slaughter until they can deploy the armaments they’ve needed for so long. The Russian foot soldiers and Prigozhin’s Wagnerites in the front lines are in fact backed by paratroopers of the real military (seemingly Spetsnaz) so that Gerasimov can ascend the sidecar-throne, but they come with machine guns, a few RPGs or simply whatever the dead compatriot ahead of them had. The only practical way for Ukraine to end the waves of infantry is with armored fighting vehicles, including tanks.

The tanks Ukraine wants happen to be the most common in Europe: the “Leopard 2”. As of today, Poland and Finland have said they would send some of theirs to Ukraine. Poland has around 250, and Finland perhaps 200. Several points of note: Finland is unprotected by NATO agreements yet is directly on a border with Russia and is fretful of giving away military goods it feels it might need any unpredictable moment. Both countries have intimated that they might be able to send a scant 14 tanks each to Ukraine. Both countries must get permits from Germany -which manufactures the Leopards- to re-direct the tanks to a different ‘end user’ than they were contracted to. A broad meeting will be held in Germany to explore legal avenues of doing so (or not) when the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meets at Ramstein Air Base on January 20. And, finally: Germany, which makes and markets the tanks, has said no delivery would be possible from their own stocks before early 2024.

The tank’s producer, Rheinmetall AG, “a German automotive and arms manufacturer,” has suddenly stated, via its CEO, that they possess 22 of the Leopard 2 tanks, and 88 of the previous model, the Leopard 1, warehoused at present, but that -according to Armin Papperger (CEO)- they would require many, many months to get ready for battle. Bizarrely, he summed up the blockage by explaining that “the vehicles must be completely dismantled and rebuilt”

The tanks in Poland and Finland are in active service. The identical German Rheinmetall tanks are in stock. They are in Germany. Germany and Rheinmetall have scrupulously clean warehouse facilities, amazingly well-tended and organized. Now we are told that they have no more tangible, functioning tanks than the crumbs of the ones which were dismembered by looters as they rusted away in the Russian military’s notoriously porous warehouses?