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Minna Ålander 🌻 Profile picture
@minna_alander
Feb 5, 2023 • 11 tweets • 7 min read • Read on X
So, what’s up with the European leopard initiative ?

This Spiegel article claimed many other nations wouldn’t want to deliver after all. So I tried to find out what’s the status.

🐆🧵
spiegel.de/politik/deutsc…
The Spiegel article claims that although Poland has promised to deliver 14 leo tanks, it’s not willing to contribute to the training or maintenance.

But @laurapitel @HenryJFoy @maxseddon reported in Financial Times on 2 Feb that training will start in 🇵🇱&🇩🇪 next week
(Link to the FT article: ft.com/content/f7704b…)

Spiegel says the Netherlands hadn’t given a definite answer yet and idk exactly what’s the status so would appreciate additional info. On 19 Jan Dutch DefMin said 🇳🇱 could *pay* for leos for 🇺🇦

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Spiegel itself reports today that Portugal has promised to contribute some tanks, although exact number hasn’t been confirmed yet - apparently the maintenance status is an issue (like in Spain too).

spiegel.de/ausland/portug…
Denmark is now eyeing 80 of 99 old Leopard 1s which had been sold off to a German company and have been rusting in storage but could potentially be bought back and fixed to be combat-ready for Ukraine. But esp ammunition is a big❓

berlingske.dk/samfund/tyskla…
FYI @spiegelonline the Norwegian government has made an official statement to the effect that Norway will contribute. Exact number of tanks that Norway could deliver not specified.

regjeringen.no/no/aktuelt/str…
Swedish DefMin has so far said Sweden doesn’t rule out also contributing at a later point. Sweden has already pledged 50 CV-90 armoured combat vehicles (NOT tanks 😉), which will complement MBTs and also play an important role.

dn.se/sverige/regeri…
The Spiegel article claims Finland isn’t going to deliver at all. I have so far not heard any official statement to the effect & 🇫🇮 Pres @niinisto has said that Finland would contribute, albeit in limited numbers because of the direct border with Russia & pending NATO membership
🇸🇪&🇫🇮 signed a bilateral MoU in Ramstein on using the joint operational planning of their Armed Forces so that Finland can keep delivering to Ukraine despite its own needs and Sweden will help out. Sounds like a potential Ringtausch scheme to me.

defmin.fi/files/5623/FIS…
Apropos Ringtausch: in Switzerland the idea is being debated that some of the 96 Swiss leopards could be sold to countries like Finland and Poland, to support their deliveries to Ukraine from their own stock. The motion was initially rejected but let’s see
aargauerzeitung.ch/aargau/kanton-…
To conclude: looks like things are moving and several leopard user countries are looking at ways to contribute. Why the preparation wasn’t started much earlier I don’t know.

The @derspiegel article seems to be partly inaccurate or at least to leave out quite many developments.

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More from @minna_alander

Minna Ålander 🌻 Profile picture
Nov 10, 2024
Ich hoffe sehr, dass sich das Denken und der Ton in Deutschland nach dem Ampel-Aus ändert, was eine Lösung für die Ukraine angeht.

Die Berichte über die Idee eines „finnischen Modells“ der Neutralität wie im kalten Krieg wurden in Finnland mit großer Bestürzung aufgenommen.
In diesem Thread sammle ich die wichtigsten Reaktionen auf höchster politischer und medialer Ebene. Ich will damit nichts anderes bezwecken, als dass deutsche Entscheidungsträger*innen und Medienvertreter*innen hoffentlich verstehen, wie schlecht das aufgenommen wurde.
Am 5.11. kommentierte der finnische Präsident @alexstubb kurz und knapp: „die Antwort an alle, die solche Ideen vorschlagen, lautet: vergesst es“.

hs.fi/politiikka/art…
Read 12 tweets
Minna Ålander 🌻 Profile picture
Nov 4, 2024
I am incredibly lucky to know many senior people in my field of work whose experience and insights I greatly value, them having witnessed the world transition from the Cold War to what came after it.

But I think there’s value also in lacking that experience.
If you lived through the Cold War, you appreciate in a different way how far we have come since, say, the CSCE Helsinki Final Act in 1975 in terms of self-determination of peoples and respect for sovereignty of states whatever their size.
But there’s also value in taking all that for granted.

If you, like my generation of Europeans, grew up in a post-Cold War united Europe where national borders had become increasingly irrelevant thanks to European integration, your standards are in a way higher.
Read 6 tweets
Minna Ålander 🌻 Profile picture
Nov 4, 2024
The whole thread leaves me simply speechless. It’s utterly incredible to me that the Finlandisation idea would make a comeback in any serious conversation especially AFTER Finland itself joined NATO and by doing so made it clear that non-alignment wasn’t an option anymore
If one thing is clear about the changes needed in a new or at least adapted European security order, it is that spaces for neutrality are almost nonexistent.

Neutrality a la Finland was never an option for Ukraine for several reasons:
1) Ukraine is much higher on Putin’s obsession scale than Finland ever was, and Ukraine is also much more important than Finland. It was partly luck that Finlandisation worked, as the Soviet Union didn’t deem the benefits to overweight the costs of trying to subjugate Finland.
Read 6 tweets
Minna Ålander 🌻 Profile picture
Sep 24, 2024
Taking stock of 2,5+ years of Russia’s war against Ukraine:

- Western leaders have successfully avoided nuclear war
- but made the war in Ukraine a world-order changing event, which it didn’t necessarily have to be
- and made nuclear proliferation more likely in the future
The West’s incremental strategy has enabled Russia to gather support from China, North Korea and Iran who were more hesitant in the beginning. They are now building the BRICS+ alternative, which can become serious competition to the western-led international order.
Thanks to this dynamic, both Iran and North Korea are less isolated now than pre-2022. Iran might very well reconsider the costs (which seem pretty low) and benefits (which seem high, given that Russia was able to coerce the West into indecision) of crossing the nuclear threshold
Read 6 tweets
Minna Ålander 🌻 Profile picture
Sep 20, 2024
Takes on Finlandisation and its post-Cold War legacy are almost exclusively bad. Labelling it as “diplo-nonsense to appease the USSR” is as mistaken as romanticising it as some kind of stroke of genius that could be exported to any other country with a Russia problem.
The only mind-boggling aspect of this is that things many Finns privately thought are now within the limits of political correctness to be said out loud.

The gist of Finlandisation was that there was a thin, performative official truth but the reality was often the opposite.
Finland was to an extent a victim of its own success, as the thin official truth had to be convincing enough to the Soviet Union. External western observers only saw the official truth and believed it to be the full truth. Pretty cringe sometimes to read literature from the time.
Read 7 tweets
Minna Ålander 🌻 Profile picture
Sep 19, 2024
This is what I feared. I had hoped that things changed in the past 80 years and supporting Ukraine’s defence TO THE FULLEST would be a no brainer. But the western incremental strategy to keep Ukraine afloat but not more was bound to lead to this disillusionment & loss of trust.
The consequences of having generations of Ukrainians who remember how we, in fact, did NOT stand with Ukraine in their hour of need will be devastating. And I don’t think western leaders appreciate it enough what a powder keg this might create, if we end up failing Ukraine fully
Sorry to be the cliche Finn and to go on about the Winter War, but the trauma of having been left alone then just sits so deep.

Just this week it was announced that Sweden will be the framework nation for Finland’s NATO FLF and people are like, ok but can we trust them now
Read 5 tweets

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