Germany creates another center to repair Western equipment for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, this time in Romania
In general, if we take into account only German defense repair enterprises in Eastern Europe, this will be the third center after Lithuania and Slovakia
Germany is expanding its repair and logistics capabilities to service Western weapons near the border with Ukraine. After the opening of the center in the Slovak city of Michalovce, 25 km from Uzhhorod, a similar facility is being set up in Romania.
The initiative comes from the German defense giant Rheinmetall, which has already begun construction of a service and logistics center, according to German TV channel N-tv, which spoke with a company representative. The center is reportedly being built in Satu Mare, just 17 km from the Ukrainian border.
The center will service not only German equipment, such as Leopard 2 tanks, Marder infantry fighting vehicles, Fuchs armored personnel carriers (the publication mentions this vehicle, but there is no information on its transfer from the Armed Forces), but also British Challenger 2 tanks (recall that the German company is modernizing this vehicle together with BAE Systems), other armored vehicles and road freight transport. Moreover, the center should also take on the task of servicing combat vehicles of NATO members who are in the country during rotations.
It should be noted that in addition to the centers in Romania and Slovakia, the German defense industry is actively using the facilities of another repair facility in the Lithuanian city of Jonava – Lithuania Defense Services. It was opened in July by Rheinmetall and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann.
However, it is not tied to the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, namely the Lithuanian Army, which actively operates German Boxer wheeled combat vehicles and PzH 2000 self-propelled artillery systems. However, this center was the first to fill the need for regular repairs and refurbishment of PzH 2000 for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
But its geographical remoteness forced us to look for other options. However, the option with Poland could not be realized due to Warsaw’s desire to get a much larger share of involvement of its own companies and the condition of technology transfer. At the same time, Polish defense companies are already actively involved in servicing equipment for the Armed Forces, as well as in manufacturing it from scratch to meet the needs of the Ukrainian army, and we are talking not only about Krab self-propelled artillery systems, but also about Rosomak wheeled combat vehicles.
