Should Canada send Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine? ‘Not there yet,’ says Trudeau

"We'll look at all the requests from Ukraine but we're not there yet, for the Leopard 2 tanks," the prime minister said, speaking in French.

Canada isn’t yet looking at sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says, despite a report that the Ukrainian leadership intends to request them.

According to a report from The Globe and Mail on Monday, Ukraine intends to ask Canada for some of its Leopard-2 main battle tanks — if Germany approves the re-export of the weaponry, which Chancellor Olaf Scholz is facing pressure to do.

“We’ll look at all the requests from Ukraine but we’re not there yet, for the Leopard 2 tanks,” the prime minister said, speaking in French.

“But we’re here to provide Ukraine what it needs so they can beat Russia.”

The re-export of Leopards requires German government approval, since they manufacture the battle tank and have a key role in the restrictions around re-exporting it.

Because of this, other countries who have bought the tanks cannot send them to Ukraine without Germany giving them the green light.

Scholz has expressed concerns that the use of NATO-standard heavy tanks in the war could escalate the conflict — though he has said that if there is agreement among Kyiv’s main allies about re-exporting the tanks, he won’t stand in their way.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, told The Globe and Mail he was “optimistic” Germany will come around.