Marder infantry fighting vehicles are apparently also being used in Kiev’s offensive on Russian territory. This has so far been the subject of cautious discussion in Germany. But that could change.
The Marder is standing at a crossroads. It is camouflaged with netting and greenery, and its cannon is difficult to see. The video shows the German armored personnel carrier from a great height before the drone that is recording the video quickly approaches. Then the perspective changes. Now the Marder is seen from a bird’s eye view again. A drone races towards it and explodes.
It is one of countless videos showing drone attacks on Ukrainian armored vehicles. But in this case, something is crucially different: This recording was probably not taken on Ukrainian soil. The Marder is said to have been destroyed at an intersection in the Russian border region of Kursk.
Aerial photograph of a German Marder infantry fighting vehicle, reportedly on Russian territory in the Kursk region.
It is not just German armored personnel carriers that are currently being used in the Ukrainian advance into Russian territory. Other Western weapons systems are also involved, including American Stryker wheeled armored vehicles, French VAB troop transporters and Polish Krab artillery pieces. Ukraine has previously used them to defend itself against the Russian invasion on its own territory. But now it is also using these weapons on Russian soil, and there is a debate in Germany about whether it is even allowed to do so.
There are two reasons for this. One of them is historical. German tanks at Kursk – wasn’t there something there? The question is being asked particularly in Moscow and fits into the Putin regime’s narrative of the “Ukrainian Nazis” and their Western sponsors. In the Battle of Kursk in July 1943, the German Wehrmacht attempted for the last time in World War II to regain the initiative against the Red Army in a large-scale operation. Both sides deployed thousands of battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, aircraft and assault guns. More than a million soldiers were killed or wounded. The Wehrmacht lost the battle.
Marders are Ukrainian weapons, not German ones
But the Marders in the Kursk region are not tanks used by Germany. With the handover, the vehicles became the property of Ukraine, says Roderich Kiesewetter, security policy expert for the Christian Democrats. Ukraine is allowed to use the tanks as it sees fit, as long as – and this is the second reason for the discussion in Germany – it adheres to international humanitarian law. This view is shared by the Bonn professor of international law, Matthias Herdegen. The right to self-defense also covers military operations on the territory of the attacking state, he says.
Left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht, chairwoman of the BSW alliance named after her, sees things differently. If the German government approved the use of Marders on Russian territory, a “red line” would have been crossed, she said. Germany would be “drawn ever deeper into the war” as a result, and the danger of “a major European war” would be growing ever greater.
But the German government apparently knew nothing about the Ukrainian plans. So far, it has refrained from making any statements about the Ukrainian offensive. However, its deputy spokesman Wolfgang Büchner spoke in Berlin of an “operation that was prepared very secretly and without any feedback.” This leads to the conclusion that it was carried out without coordination with the government in Berlin.
In addition, the question arises as to how Chancellor Olaf Scholz would have reacted if the Ukrainians had told him in advance that they were going to attack Russia with German armored personnel carriers. When the German debate about arms deliveries to Ukraine began after Putin’s troops invaded in February 2022, Scholz, but above all the left in his Social Democratic Party, vehemently put the brakes on. If the Federal Republic delivers battle tanks and armored personnel carriers, the risk of the war escalating increases, said parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich, among others, repeatedly warning.
No restrictions on the area of operation
Scholz adopted this argument for months before finally announcing the delivery of Marder tanks at the beginning of January 2023 and Leopard 2A6 tanks three weeks later. In a speech to the Bundestag at the end of January 2023, he linked the Marder decision to the US promise to deliver American Bradley infantry fighting vehicles at the same time. At the time, Scholz did not speak of limiting the Marder’s area of operation to Ukraine.
More than a year and a half later, it is clear that neither the German infantry fighting vehicles nor the Leopard 2 have brought about a change on the battlefield. They could not do that, if only because there were far too few of them for the Ukrainians. In the winter of last year, the German government announced that it would deliver 40 Marder and 18 Leopard 2A6 tanks. The number of Marders has since been increased to 120, and the last ten arrived in Ukraine in early summer. Most of them come from the arms industry’s stocks.
It is difficult to verify the loss rate of the Marder, which was developed in the 1960s. Researchers at the Dutch military blog Oryx have so far counted 22 destroyed, abandoned or captured Marders. The German army had several thousand of these armored personnel carriers during the Cold War. They were intended to transport infantrymen to the front under armor protection, armed with a 20-millimeter cannon.
1000 square kilometers occupied
Observers such as the Austrian General Staff officer Markus Reisner report, however, that the Ukrainians preferred the American Bradley to the German Marder simply because of the greater penetrating power of its cannon. After the US government promised another 100 Bradleys this spring, the number of these armored personnel carriers in Ukraine is about three times the German deliveries. At the same time, the losses are enormous. Oryx reports that 92 Bradleys have been destroyed, abandoned or captured by the Russians.
After Ukrainian troops advanced into Russian territory on August 6 and initially encountered relatively little resistance, news and images of destroyed and captured Ukrainian weapons have recently been piling up. These include not only the video of the attack on the Marder, but also images of American and French vehicles. Nevertheless, the Russian armed forces have apparently not managed to stop the Ukrainian advance so far.
Kiev’s armed forces have advanced several dozen kilometers into the territory of the Moscow regime, apparently with the aim of establishing a buffer zone there. According to their own statements, they now occupy an area of more than 1,000 square kilometers. But Russia is bringing in troops that it is pushing toward the Ukrainian attack points. Using drones, artillery, rocket launchers and glide bombs, Moscow’s armed forces are also trying to prevent Ukrainian supplies and to fight the enemy troops, who have often retreated into wooded and difficult-to-access areas.
From a German perspective, the question is how sustainable the Ukrainian advance will be. If the Ukrainians succeed in establishing a buffer zone on Russian territory and thus holding areas, the problem will arise as to how they can defend themselves against the expected Russian attacks. Rocket and tube artillery will also play a role in this. The German Panzerhaubitze 2000, for example, has a range of up to 80 kilometers, depending on the type of ammunition. Given the territorial gains made so far, it could be deployed from Ukrainian soil to combat Russian counterattacks in the Kursk region.
Unpleasant scenarios for Olaf Scholz
Such a scenario would be anything but pleasant for the German Chancellor. It would create further conflict within his party. It is precisely the use of German weapons on Russian territory that has dominated the debate about the possible use of the German Taurus cruise missile for more than a year. Not least because this missile could reach deep into Russia, the left wing of the SPD in particular sees a risk of escalation that could lead to a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia.
For a long time, this concern also applied to other long-range weapons, such as the Himars and Mars II rocket artillery supplied by the USA and Germany. For this reason, Ukraine’s Western allies have long imposed restrictions on this. However, after the Russian offensive against Kharkiv in May, Washington and Berlin revised this stance. Since then, Western weapons can be used on Russian soil if an attack threatens.
The offensive in the Kursk region shows that this rule is obviously being interpreted generously. It is unclear whether it also applies to the defense of Ukrainian troops on Russian soil. It could be that with the Ukrainian advance in the Kursk area, not only old German armored personnel carriers but also modern artillery will soon be deployed on Russian soil.
For the left wing of the SPD around Rolf Mützenich, this would be another defeat in a whole series of decisions made by the Social Democrats since the Russian attack on Ukraine. Just this week, the SPD executive committee declared that it supported Chancellor Scholz’s plan to station long-range American missiles in Germany. Mützenich and the party’s left wing had assessed the stationing as a high security risk and rejected it, as did the AfD and the BSW.