BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - Russia has condemned Germany's decision to supply armored personnel carriers and a Patriot anti-aircraft system to Ukraine as a "step toward conflict escalation." The provision of these heavy weapons once again crosses a "moral line," the Russian Embassy in Berlin said Friday. It referred to Germany's historical responsibility for crimes committed by the Nazis against Russians during World War II.

Meanwhile, discussions are already underway in Germany about further arms deliveries to Ukraine for the fight against Russian aggressors. Politicians from the Green Party, the FDP and the CDU/CSU are urging that the much more powerful Leopard 2 main battle tanks also be sent to the war zone. So far, however, the German government has no plans to do so.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz and U.S. President Joe Biden had declared on Thursday evening after a telephone conversation that they wanted to supply Ukraine with Western-designed infantry fighting vehicles for the first time. The German government plans to send about 40 Marder by the end of March. The eight-week training of Ukrainian soldiers on the armored vehicles, which are comparatively lightly armed, is to take place in Germany. According to government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit, the conversation between Scholz and Biden was not about the delivery of battle tanks.

Ukraine had been asking the Western allies, and Germany in particular, for battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles for months. President Volodymyr Selenskyi thanked Scholz and Biden Friday night for the pledge that has now been made. "We will get another Patriot system and powerful armor technology, this is really a great victory for our state," he said in his video address. Ukrainian Ambassador Oleksii Makeiev tweeted black-red-and-gold hearts and the words "#ThankGermany."

Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Andriy Melnyk called on the German government to now quickly follow up. The decision to deliver the Marder should be the "first breaking of taboos" to immediately equip the military with all weapons systems, the former Ukrainian ambassador to Berlin told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND). "It's about all the heavy weapons that can be delivered immediately, such as battle tanks, combat aircraft, combat drones, warships, submarines, ballistic missiles." In this regard, he said, the size of the deliveries is also "critical to the war effort."

In the coalition, FDP politicians in particular made the case for the delivery of battle tanks, but so did Green Party European politician Anton Hofreiter. Speaking on ARD television, he called on the German government to launch "a European initiative" for the delivery of Leopard 2 tanks. The strategy, he said, must be to support Ukraine with everything it needs on the battlefield, and that includes considerably more.

SPD foreign policy expert Ralf Stegner rejected such demands: "The intentions of the war criminal Putin can never be trusted. Nevertheless, a blanket no to "ceasefire" without examination is just as questionable as calls for "proper German battle tanks" barely after allies have decided to supply infantry fighting vehicles to defend Ukraine," he wrote on Twitter.

At the start of its closed-door meeting, the CSU in the Bundestag called on the traffic light coalition to supply Ukraine with battle tanks as well as infantry fighting vehicles. "The second step must also come," said state group leader Alexander Dobrindt. AfD leader Tino Chrupalla, on the other hand, warned: "Germany is threatening to become a war party for good - with unforeseeable consequences for our country and its citizens."/mfi/cn/jr/DP/ngu