A minute’s silence for the victims of the war in Ukraine has just ended in the Orangery, and the Federal Chancellor must be prepared for thunderstorms. On the podium is former world boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko, who came to Potsdam to accept the M100 Media Award on behalf of the Ukrainian people. “I have to say that I was incredibly impressed by your speech,” the mayor’s brother said to Olaf Scholz. Klitschko is referring to the Bundestag speech three days after the Russian attack on Ukraine and immediately adds that actions are more important than words. “We need weapons,” he shouts, “we need heavy weapons. We need offensive weapons. We need weapons to defend and liberate the country.”
It is one of those moments that the chancellor often experiences these days. Again and again he has to listen to criticism because he has received urgent requests from Ukraine for battle tanks of the type leopard 2 and armored personnel carriers of the type marten ignored. Scholz remains undeterred by his line that there will be no German going it alone in a situation in which the other NATO countries are not supplying any western battle tanks either. He considers the criticism to be unjustified in view of the fact that, according to the federal government, weapons deliveries worth 733.6 million euros have already been made or are being prepared. In Potsdam, too, he pointed out that modern weapons from Germany had contributed to the Ukrainian army’s recent gains in territory.
But the topic is not going away, on the contrary. The Union wants to call it again in the Bundestag next week. The Chancellor will also be followed to New York, where he will address the United Nations General Assembly for the first time and want to make very fundamental statements about the turning point in history as a result of the Russian war of aggression. Scholz has also announced himself for interviews with the New York Times and the broadcaster NBC, which should not spare him inquiries about the German arms deliveries. “Strong changes” in the previous attitude should not be expected, said the Chancellor’s Office in advance.
“Great Appreciation” from the White House
Behind this is the Chancellor’s conviction that he is not only at peace with himself, but also with US President Joe Biden. “There is no request from the White House, neither pressure nor requests that we deliver specific weapon systems, for example battle tanks, to Ukraine,” says one of his people. Rather, one hears “great recognition again and again”.
However, the Chancellery also attaches importance to pointing out that Scholz has never ruled out the delivery of battle tanks. Deliveries were repeatedly adjusted to the military situation. One is “in a very dynamic situation” that has to be reassessed again and again.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock insists that a decision should “not be delayed much longer,” as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said. It is no secret in which direction the Green politician tends. For a long time it has been clear that a delivery of armored personnel carriers to the Federal Foreign Office will not fail. However, Baerbock also said, as far as modern main battle tanks are concerned, to which the marten not necessarily count, “you can only decide together, in a coalition and internationally”.
On Tuesday, after returning from Kyiv, she spoke to Scholz in private. Afterwards it was said that they had not only declared joint action as a condition in the spirit of the coalition peace; that is their position on the question. Of course, it is unclear what that means: does the USA have to deliver itself? Or just signal that the Germans would like to submit? When Poland raised MiG-29fighter jets to Ukraine, the Americans publicly shot down the proposal. You won’t hear anything like that if Berlin asks, according to Washington.
40 main battle tanks for Greece
However, the resolute speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, did not want to formulate concrete demands on Friday in Berlin. The Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk, told her what his country needed and she would inform President Biden. She pointed out that the State and Defense Departments in Washington were working on an assessment of the situation in order to deduce what type of weapons would be supplied.
German industry should be 40 marten at least give them from their holdings to Greece. Athens and Berlin have now agreed on a corresponding contract. In return, Ukraine will have Soviet-type armored personnel carriers BMP-1 received, but which cannot be compared to the German device in terms of combat effectiveness. In the short term, main battle tanks would only be conceivable from Bundeswehr stocks, and Scholz made this clear at the Bundeswehr conference in Berlin, where he is standing by his Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht.
The national and alliance defense is again a core task of the Bundeswehr. “Everything else is derived from this order,” emphasized Scholz, all other tasks “have to be subordinate to this order”. But Lambrecht argued that if the troops wanted to keep all their commitments to NATO and the allies on the eastern flank, they could no longer hand over any material.