Olaf Scholz, German chancellor, has warned against a bidding war among western allies over military aid to Ukraine, as he firmly ruled out sending fighter jets and ground troops to Kyiv. In an interview with the German newspaper Tagesspiegel, Scholz said that “no one is even asking” about sending combat aircraft.

“The fact we’ve only just made a decision [on sending tanks] and already the next debate is firing up in Germany, that just seems frivolous, and undermines people’s trust in government decisions,” he said. “I can only advise against entering a bidding war over weapons systems.”

Scholz was speaking just days after announcing that Germany would be supplying Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, and allowing other European states to send their stocks of the German-made weapons system too, in a major ramping-up of western military support for Kyiv.