Not only is Switzerland refusing to allow other countries to send Swiss weapons to Ukraine, it is actually destroying weapons that could be used by Ukraine.
On 12 March, Swiss president Alain Berset reaffirmed Swiss neutrality, telling NZZ, a Swiss newspaper: ‘It is precisely because we are neutral and do not allow the transfer of weapons to war zones that we can do a great deal for this continent. Pacifism has a bad reputation right now, but warfare is not part of the Swiss DNA.’
While planning to provide over £4.4bn in humanitarian and peacebuilding aid to Ukraine, the Swiss government has refused to allow Germany, Spain or Denmark to transfer anti-aircraft shells or other Swiss military equipment they own to Ukraine.
NZZ has revealed that Switzerland is destroying 50-year-old but still functional Rapier ground-to-air defence systems.
According to rules set in 2006, foreign-made systems which are no longer required by the Swiss military should be sold back to the producing country ‘without conditions’.
If this procedure had been followed in the case of the 60 Rapiers, made in Britain, the anti-aircraft systems would have been sold back to the UK without Switzerland being able to object to them being sent on to Ukraine.