Many strong words will be heard in the Bundestag this Sunday. Chancellor Olaf Scholz will make a government statement full of disgust at the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In, as they like to say, he will condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin in a harsh manner. The Chancellor will assure the Ukrainians, the victims of a criminal war of aggression, of Germany’s full solidarity. Speakers from all democratic factions, from the coalition as well as from the opposition, will repeat, support and reinforce these words. There will be nothing wrong with any of these words except the fact that they will be empty. Without value.
“I’m here,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video message on Saturday morning. That night Kiev did not fall. That is the message to the people of Ukraine, but also to the rest of the world. There is still a Ukraine defending itself and a democratically elected President begging for help. It is words and images that will haunt the cowardly despot in the Kremlin to the end. But not only him.
In dark days like these, there is a great need to get on the right side of history. The problem is that words alone cannot do this. The Russian President should not believe “for a second” that the people in Germany and Europe simply accept this brutal violence, said Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned that the Russian leadership would pay “a high price” for its aggression. Germany and the West are “stunned, but we are not helpless,” promised Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
The agreed package of sanctions is unprecedented, yes – and yet too weak
The weight of these words is being weighed these hours in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities under shelling. Are they helping to make Putin pause? Will you strengthen Ukrainian defenses against an overwhelming enemy? The federal government has not been idle in recent weeks. She has been working on the sanctions package that has now been agreed, alongside desperate diplomatic efforts. It is indeed unprecedented in scope. And still too weak.
The sanctions are aimed at eroding the Putin regime. They are said to damage Russia so economically that the warlord in the Kremlin will lose its economic base in the long term and the corrupt elite may turn their backs on him. The intention to shake the regime so badly and so quickly that it provides acute help to the invaded Ukraine is not at all pursued with the punitive measures. The question of whether this is even possible is justified. The bitter truth, however, is that there was one assumption from the start: If there was an attack, there would be no help for Ukraine.
Every hour that the Ukrainian resistance holds is now an hour more in which words can be followed by deeds. Cutting off Russia from the Swift payment system would be a step with massive consequences for Germany and all of Europe. However, it would probably also be the first step that really thwarts Putin’s calculations. Showing him that the West is not as weak as he thinks it is. Whether that would help Ukraine is not certain. The only thing that is certain is that it will harm Ukraine if the West does not exhaust all possible sanctions.
This also applies to deliveries of weapons. The Ukrainian wishes have always been ironed out with reference to the massive German economic aid, the German legal situation and the diplomatic efforts. The whole misery of this German refusal to help Ukraine with such supplies was revealed by CDU leader and opposition leader Friedrich Merz. Yes, he says, maybe we should have talked about arms deliveries. But now it is too late.
In 2014, the federal government delivered weapons to the beleaguered Kurds in Iraq in a lightning strike. A similar act of solidarity with Ukraine today would outweigh many words.