‘We had necessary permits’, says German dealer behind Swiss tanks in Ukraine

How did Swiss armoured vehicles end up near the front in Ukraine? Keystone / Ronald Wittek

A German dealer behind the re-export of Swiss armoured vehicles spotted in Ukraine says they have been completely demilitarised, reports the NZZ newspaper on Friday.

Pictures of one or two armoured vehicles apparently made by the Swiss manufacturer Mowag have appeared on the internet from the front in Ukraine. The Swiss authorities say they are investigating.

The NZZ paper saidExternal link it had tracked the journey of the Mowag Eagle vehicles to German entrepreneur Thomas Bockhold and the FWW Fahrzeugwerke company. Bockhold bought 27 of the 36 armoured vehicles that Denmark procured from Switzerland in the 1990s, while the rest ended up on the scrap heap or in museums, according to the NZZ.

The 64-year-old former German army officer, who is also the Honorary Consul of Papua New Guinea in Germany, told the NZZ he “coordinated everything with the authorities” and “we had all the necessary permits”. Answering the paper’s phone call, he claimed he had a certificate confirming the vehicles’ demilitarisation before they were sent to Ukraine.

However, under Swiss law, armoured vehicles that have been demilitarised are still considered war materiel, the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) confirmed to NZZ. This means Bockhold needed to obtain permission from Switzerland to transfer the armoured vehicles, but SECO says it has not received a request from any German company to deliver Eagle vehicles abroad in recent years.

Traditionally, neutral Switzerland has come under pressure both at home and abroad to ease its strict rules on war materiel aimed at preventing Swiss arms from ending up in conflict zones. It has faced criticism from Germany, Spain and Denmark over blocking shipments of Swiss-made ammunition to Ukraine.