BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - A week before new talks in Ramstein on military aid to Ukraine, the German government is not holding out the prospect of a change of course on the handover of battle tanks for the time being. An expectation that there would be a change in the German government's position on this by the time of the meeting was "not very likely," government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in Berlin on Wednesday. Furthermore, there were no concrete requests for approval of Leopard deliveries.

Nor is there any known concrete request from allies for Germany to supply main battle tanks itself, Hebestreit said. "We have air defense systems of various natures, we now have infantry fighting vehicles, but we have also delivered and continue to deliver many more troop carriers and the like. We are monitoring very closely the situation on the ground," he stressed.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has invited members of the so-called Ukraine Contact Group to a meeting at the U.S. Ramstein Air Base in Rhineland-Palatinate. The third such meeting will take place on Jan. 20. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had said in Brussels on Tuesday that Ramstein would be about further arms deliveries to Ukraine./cn/DP/jha