Germany has given Ukraine important arms - envoy

(ANSA) - ROME, APR 20 - Germany has given Ukraine important arms, German Ambassador to Rome Viktor Elbling told an ANSA Forum Wednesday.
    "Germany is doing an awful lot for Ukraine," Elbling said.
    "We have supplied important arms, for those who know German history it was a very important turning point, we have directly supplied Stingers and other equipment to Ukraine and other weapons".
    Kyiv on Wednesday voiced disappointment that Berlin had decided to stop giving it arms after the German army said it needed all its heavy weaponry for itself.
    Elbling added that giving up Russian gas would be damaging.
    "We can't get out of this relative reliance on Russian gas from today to tomorrow, both Germany and Italy, it would be very damaging, but I'm sure that already this year we will take an important step to significantly reduce this dependence, and in the next few years we want to cut this dependence to zero.
    "Italy is well-positioned in energy diversification, it has regassification plants already in place. We are working on it, a lot will happen in the coming years". (ANSA).