When East Germany ceased to exist on 3rd October 1990, the National People’s Army (NVA) left behind 3,000 battle tanks, nearly 8,000 armoured vehicles, countless aircraft, helicopters, howitzers ...

And the same was true for East Germany, where I grew up. So it was only 2009 when the first German soldier was killed in Afghanistan. So the German society is not used to such things.

The Cold War-era Leopard 1A5 may be old, but it is still effective, Germany says. The country is now training Ukrainian troops to operate the weapons.