Ukraine Crisis: Olaf Scholz negotiates with Vladamir Putin
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The German Chancellor has come under heavy fire from the international community for reportedly being too slow to ship over as much lethal aid when compared to his Western counterparts. Kyiv has desperately pleaded for more heavy weaponry in order to fend off Russian attacks. But commentators and allies alike claimed Berlin was dragging its foot over sending tanks armoured vehicles, and howitzers over, despite Russian forces making headway in Ukraine’s Donbas region.
Now, in a wish list of weapons Ukraine desperately needed was leaked to the press, Germany reportedly crossed off the bulk of weapons on there.
This reportedly showed that only three of 15 types of arms requested by Kyiv would be sent to the country.
One of the country’s top military generals, Markus Laubenthal, said Germany would be unable to meet its NATO commitments if it shipped over more weapons to Ukraine, and Mr Scholz seems unwilling to budge on his position.
But former Italian Army officer and NATO expert Thomas C. Theiner, is furious with Mr Scholz for making “lies” to excuse this.
He tweeted: “A timeline of Olaf Scholz’s many lies.
“1) At the end of February Germany’s defence industry sends Scholz a long list of all available weapons.
“2) Scholz doesn’t share the list with Ukraine.
“3) Scholz says that there are no more weapons left in Germany to give to Ukraine.”
The German Defence Ministry drew up a list of weaponry available and had reportedly mulled over which of those would be feasible to send to Ukraine.
It came after Ukraine sent over the wish list to Berlin asking for certain weapons.
But some heavy weaponry systems, like the Marder, used for infantry fighting vehicles, were taken out of service and therefore crossed off the list.
The Gepard, an anti-aircraft tank and the self-propelled Panzerhaubitze 2000 howzier, were also crossed off.
The list was allegedly not shared with Ukraine initially, leaving Mr Theiner furious.
But that is just the start of the saga.
Mr Theiner went on: “4) Germany’s defence industry leaks the list to Ukraine’s ambassador.”
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When Germany crossed off these requested weapons from the list, Ukraine was not happy to discover this through the leaks.
Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, said: “The weapons we need are not even on this list.”
Mr Theirner carried on: “5) Scholz says that the weapons on the list don’t work.
“6) The defence industry denies this and leaks the list to the press.
“7) Scholz states Ukrainians can’t master the weapons in the available time.”
Despite Mr Scholz’s refusal to send the weapons Ukraine specifically asked for, he has pledged to “enable Ukraine to buy commercially produced military equipment”.
He claimed his Government has “gone through an industrial list together with Ukraine” and that it would “pay for this shipment”.
But the leaked details reveal that the agreed list of purchases is only €307million (£257million), which is less than a third of the €1billion (£830million) promised by Mr Scholz.
But even agreeing on the €1billion (£830million) was not an easy decision for Mr Scholz.
Mr Theiner continued: “11) Scholz says no other NATO/EU ally is delivering heavy weapons to Ukraine.
“12) The US, UK, Australia, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, Turkey, Italy, Finland, Denmark, Romania, Netherlands, publish the lists of heavy weapons they deliver to Ukraine.
“13) Under pressure Scholz announces €2billion for Ukraine’s military.
“14) German parliamentarians find out that it’s really just €1 billion, which won’t be available for another 2-3 months, and then Scholz can veto or delay indefinitely every item Ukraine wants to buy.
“15) The US, France, Poland, Romania, Japan, the UK and Italy, plus the heads of EU and NATO spend an afternoon trying to talk sense into Scholz.
“16) Scholz makes a statement and says Ukraine can have the €1 billion now and order whatever it wants from the list.
“17) Ukraine’s ambassador says that Scholz removed all the items Ukraine actually wants from the list before giving it to Ukraine and what remains on the list is just a fraction of the €1 billion.“
“Scholz isn’t incompetent or mendacious… he just works for the Russians.”
German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, implied on Wednesday that her Government has chosen not to make public all its weapons exports to Ukraine deliberately.
She said: “We have delivered anti-tank missiles, Stingers and other things that we have never spoken about publicly, so these deliveries could happen quickly.”
Express.co.uk has approached the German Government for comment on the matter.
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