Germany to transfer equipment repair center for Armed Forces of Ukraine from Slovakia

After lengthy negotiations, Germany wants to vacate a repair center set up in Slovakia for large-scale military equipment from Ukraine.

The move comes amid Slovakia’s increasing alignment with Russia under its new government and complications in repair operations, threatening to disrupt the crucial maintenance pipeline for Ukraine’s German-made combat vehicles at a time when battlefield equipment sustainability is vital to Ukraine’s defense efforts.

German news agency DPA reports that the intention is to relocate the repair hub to Germany by December 31, a spokesperson for the German Ministry of Defense confirmed.

The spokesperson refers to changing conditions and the sometimes extremely complex repair work that has to be carried out on the damaged vehicles.

The repair center in Slovakia has been in operation since the end of 2022 for the Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled howitzer, the Dingo wheeled armored vehicle, the MARS II artillery rocket system and the Gepard anti-aircraft gun tank.

In addition, the news outlet reports that ”The NATO partner had repeatedly shown itself to be unwieldy in the repair center’s operating procedures.”

Complications and competition

The search for maintenance infrastructure for the German military equipment deployed in Ukraine has been complicated for some time.

In 2022, a repair center in Poland near the Ukrainian border was initially under discussion. However, NATO partner Poland demanded that its own state-owned armaments company PGZ should be in charge of the repairs. The demand was made to hand over sensitive design information to the company. The German arms manufacturer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) rejected this for competitive reasons.

The choice finally fell on Slovakia, which also borders Ukraine.

Earlier this year, the Business Insider Germany reported that disagreements between Germany and Slovakia led to the fact that weapons scheduled for delivery to Ukraine were sometimes standing at the Ukrainian-Slovakian border for weeks without being allowed into the country. The reason was said to be disagreements over European customs regulations.

There are further German industry repair facilities in Lithuania and Ukraine.

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