Swiss firm already sold Leopard tanks destined for Ukraine

Keystone / Morris Macmatzen / Pool

The Swiss company Ruag wanted to sell the tanks to Germany, which intended to send them to Ukraine. But according to an investigation by the Tages-Anzeiger published on Saturday, some of these tanks were already sold four years ago for a derisory price.

In 2019, Ruag sold 25 Leopard 1 tanks to a Bavarian company, Global Logistics Support GmbH (GLS). The company only paid around CHF 12,500 ($14,133) for these 25 tanks, a unit price of CHF 500.

It was precisely these tanks that the government-owned armaments group wanted, until recently, to send indirectly to Ukraine by selling them to another German company, Rheinmetall, which the Swiss Federal Council refused two months ago.

External investigation opened

Last Monday, the head of the Swiss Armed Forces, Viola Amherd, announced an external investigation into the sale, but the revelations of the Tages-Anzeiger investigation published on Saturday have taken the political world by surprise.

Fabien Fivaz, a Green Party parliamentarian and member of the Security Policy Committee, is astonished: “What surprises me most is that Ruag is not aware that, at the time they signed a contract with Rheinmetall for all the tanks, 25 had already been sold.

Tanks for peanuts

Another surprise was that Ruag sold the 25 tanks for CHF500 each, whereas the Swiss company had bought them for more than CHF43,000 each three years earlier. A “bad deal”, ran the headline in the Tages-Anzeiger.

On the political right, questions are being asked about Ruag’s management. Olivier Français, senator and member of the Radical Party, responded on Swiss public television RTS on Saturday:

“Clearly, there is a problem with governance, and this can be traced all the way back to the Board of Directors, because it is very clear that these weapons of war cannot be sold without going through a certain process. So there is a very, very serious malaise within Ruag”.

On the left, there are already calls for greater political control of Ruag. Pierre-Alain Fridez, Social Democrat and parliamentarian, believes that “politicians should have a much clearer, much more precise view of this company’s actions”.

Charles Juillard, of the Centre Party and a member of the senate’s Management Committee, warned that “Ruag will have to explain itself to the Committee, the Department will have to explain itself and, secondarily, the Federal Council will have to explain itself in relation to the objectives it has set”.

GLS claims its tanks

GLS did not react to the last-minute requests from the Tages-Anzeiger. It did, however, send a press release to the newspaper in which it stressed its right to 25 of the tanks parked in northern Italy.

According to the Tages-Anzeiger, GLS had only notified Ruag of its ownership rights to the 25 Leopards through a law firm last week. Ruag’s Board of Directors therefore called a special meeting last Sunday. The board decided to open an investigation into the events.

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