Friday, March 29

The Greens force Chancellor Scholz to send more weapons to Ukraine


The German Foreign Minister appeared on Tuesday at the Berlin Chancellery for a meeting that was not on the agenda and after which there was no press conference or information from spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit. But Annalena Baerbock, a member of the Greens party, did make a statement later, without referring to the content of the conversation with Chancellor Olaf Scholz but making it quite clear what they had been talking about. “Our weapons help save human lives,” she said, thus siding with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kulebawith whom he had just met and who insists on making it known in Berlin that “every minute that Germany does not deliver tanks to the victims of the war, a Ukrainian soldier dies in combat.”

Chancellor Scholz’s position is that Germany is not a “party to war” in the sense of international law, therefore it avoids acting alone and tries to reduce its participation to the level strictly necessary within the framework of the commitments of the EU and the NATO. Baerbock and his entire Green Party, on the other hand, go much further in their support of Ukraine. Berlin is experiencing the paradox that the coalition’s green partner, an eco-pacifist party that was born and raised with the aim of fighting nuclear energy, NATO and German arms exports, is now supporting Ukraine against Putin much more vigorously. warlike than Scholz’s SPD. After the meeting at the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Defense announced yesterday the new shipment to kyiv of two MARS II multiple rocket launchers, including 200 rockets as ammunition and 50 Dingo armored vehicles. “We are not given what we need,” reacted the younger brother of the mayor of kyiv, Wladimir Klitschko, “only with weaponry and modern technology can we stop this war and stop Russia.”

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crucial phase

The Alliance of Ukrainian Organizations, an umbrella association for different Ukraine-related initiatives in Germany, also urged Scholz in an open letter to “please stop hesitating and supply Ukraine with the necessary weapons.” And Baerbock joined them, recalling that “the last few days have shown how important Western weapons are to Ukraine.” “It can only be decided together in a coalition and internationally,” he agreed with the most recurrent of Scholz’s arguments, “but at the crucial stage Ukraine is currently in, I don’t think it’s a decision that should be delayed for long.” weather”. In his opinion it is about how Germany can offer even more of what »is now helping so efficiently, ie air defense, artillery, multiple rocket launchers«. He has also announced that he wants to talk to NATO about the actions of the Bundeswehr.

Baerbock is negotiating the installation of un heavy weapons repair center on the Polish-Ukrainian border and wants to talk to the industry about “starting up our own production lines for the missing material, especially ammunition”. The industry, for its part, handles broader concepts. German arms manufacturer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) has offered to supply 100 Leopard 2A7 tanks, including spare parts and training for Ukrainian soldiers to operate them. According to the company, the first tanks could be ready for shipment 36 months after closing the deal, while the last ones would be delivered in 65 months.

Altogether, the products offered amount to 1,550 million euros, but KMW has not submitted the corresponding application to obtain the export permit and the chancellor’s office continues to refuse to comment on the matter, despite the fact that the war reports of the last Days and weeks have shown that state-of-the-art Western weapons systems make “a big difference.” “Our ‘Gepard’ tanks, self-propelled howitzers and multiple rocket launchers are helping to ensure that the occupied places in the east can finally be liberated and that Russian air forces and important Russian positions can be eliminated in a targeted way,” Baerbock says, for who German arms deliveries “obviously very clearly help save lives.” That is why “a foreign policy based on human rights should constantly ask how we can help liberate even more peoples and thus save lives with more renditions,” he said.

export rules

In his speech yesterday before the main army commanders, Chancellor Scholz, however, settled his own categorization: “National and alliance defense first”, from which it follows that Ukraine is in the second row. He did announce, yes, that the German government is ready to review the export rules for joint weapons projects of several countries, and it is a relevant novelty. “Some may be surprised by this, but the federal government is ready for it,” he insisted, again pointing to projects in which Germany do not appear as an individual arms supplier. “We have only strategically repositioned ourselves in NATO and the EU. We are still working on it nationally.” At the moment, Berlin continues to bet on a circular delivery system that only provides kyiv with old weapons: Greece will receive German Marder armor, one of those requested by Ukraine, in exchange for Athens delivering older armor to kyiv and Poland has supplied Zelensky with tanks Soviet-made T-70 in exchange for Germany selling its most modern tanks.


www.abc.es

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