Greece offers Ukraine its Marder tracked armored IFVs donated by Germany.

According to information published on Yahoo News, on January 9, 2023, Greek Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos discusses with his German counterpart Christine Lambrecht, the option to deliver as a priority to the Ukrainian army the Marder IFVs (Infantry Fighting Vehicles) that Greece was going to receive following the donation of its BMP-1 IFVs to Ukraine.
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German-made Marder IFV at the military parade in Thessaloniki, in October 2022. (Picture source Rheinmetall Defense)

On September 17, 2022, the Army Recognition editorial team reported that Greece will donate 40 BMP-1 tracked armored IFVs (Infantry Fighting Vehicles) from its military inventory and will receive in exchange 40 Marder tracked armored IFVs from Germany. To date, Germany has already delivered 14 Marder IFVs to Greece.

On January 5, 2023, Germany approved the delivery of 40 Marder tracked armored IFVs (Infantry Fighting Vehicles) to Ukraine to increase the combat capabilities of the Ukrainian army against the Russian forces, but currently, Germany would have difficulty supplying the 40 Marder IFVs to Ukraine.

Following information from the German armed forces, only 62% of the 370 Marder IFVs of the German army military inventory are available to be rapidly deployed. The German army had planned to replace the Marder IFV with the new Puma, but this one has shown several technical failures during military service. The latest spate of incidents included one IFV that suffered a cable fire in the driver's compartment, while at least two others vehicles had turret defects that emerged during the training exercise.

Germany's armed forces announced that the delivery of Marder IFVs to Ukraine could therefore reduce the combat capabilities of the German army.

The Marder is German-made tracked armored IFV that entered into service with the German army in 1968. Currently, Marder 1A3 and 1A5 are deployed with the German army. Both, are modernized versions of the previous versions. The vehicle has a crew of three including a commander, driver and gunner, and can accommodate up to six infantrymen.

The Marder 1A3 is fitted with a two-man turret armed with one 20mm automatic cannon and a MILAN anti-tank guided missile launcher station able to destroy light and heavy armored vehicles with a maximum firing range of 3,000 m.

The Marder is fitted with a new passive armor package providing protection against penetration from the Russian BMP-2 30 mm cannon. This package consists of frontal armor on the hull, add-on armor on the glacis plate, conformal add-on armor on both sides of the turret, three box-type armor components on both sides of the hull (so blocking off the hull firing ports), spaced armor plates on the roof to cause premature detonation of top attack bomblets, add-on armor with a stowage compartment at the rear door and improvements in human engineering.