The Swiss government has approved the sale of 71 of the country’s Leopard 1A5 tanks to Germany. But Germany cannot send the tanks afterwards to Ukraine as it planned–with Switzerland saying that would contravene its cherished neutrality.
A Swiss ordinance from 2022 prohibited the sale, transfer, and export of military equipment to both Russia and Ukraine.
Swiss defence company Ruag argued it only planned to sell the vehicles, which are currently in Italy, to German defence group Rheinmetall.
Germany’s government planned to refurbish these tanks, which first entered service in 1965, then afterwards pass them on to Ukraine to aid the country in fending off the Russian invasion.
However, Werner Salzmann, MP for the right-wing Swiss People’s Party, told Swiss news site Nau Switzerland had to be clear the tanks would not be used to arm Ukraine.
“Otherwise it is problematic in terms of neutrality,” he said.
The transaction has caused some debate over fears of weakening Switzerland’s highly-prized neutrality.
Switzerland’s government decided to prevent the transaction in June 2023, saying it would violate the 2022 ordinance.
Both the German and Dutch governments applied heavy pressure to their Swiss counterparts behind the scenes, attempting to change their minds.
Mark Rutte, Dutch PM in 2023 and now Secretary General of NATO, called the decision “very disappointing” and “hard to understand”.
Last week the Swiss government announced Ruag had contacted it again about the sale of the 71 tanks–and now it responded the company could now sell the vehicles to Germany without restrictions.
But this was only possible because Ruag had previously excluded the tanks’ transfer to Ukraine in its contract with Rheinmetall.
Switzerland’s government said Germany appeared in Annex 2 of the Swiss War Material Ordinance, meaning an individual export permit for defence transactions was not necessary.
Since Ruag had contractually precluded their transfer to Ukraine, then the sale would not violate the 2022 Ordinance on Measures in Connection with the Situation in Ukraine, it said.
Ruag bought the tanks–of which there were originally 96–from the Italian army in 2016.
Since then, they have been stored on a field in northern Italy.
In 2019, Ruag sold 25 of the tanks to another German company, Global Logistics Support GmbH, though that company never collected them.
As soon as the ownership of those 25 vehicles was confirmed, they can also be sold to Rheinmetall, said the Swiss government.
🇨🇭🫱🇩🇪❌🇺🇦 RUAG (RüstungsUnternehmen-Aktien Gesellschaft) obtient enfin l'autorisation du gouvernement fédéral suisse de vendre à l'Allemagne 71 de ses 96 Leopard 1A5 (3 bataillons de chars) pourrissant en Italie mais … à condition qu'ils ne finissent pas en Ukraine.
Il… pic.twitter.com/VAyr7PezGM— STEVIUS (@Stevius21) May 29, 2025
