Yuri Kobzar14:38, 19.08.24

But pro-Russian parties are happy about it and are calling for aid to be cut off completely to Ukraine.

There is a dispute within the German government over the decision to cut military aid to Ukraine . The German Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Defense are shifting the blame to each other, BILD writes, citing its sources. 

As the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper reported earlier, already approved aid for this year continues to flow to Ukraine, but the German Finance Ministry is no longer approving new unscheduled requests, for example, for the purchase of spare parts for broken tanks.

In response to BILD’s inquiry, the Finance Ministry stated that they were “ready to examine the provision of additional funds at short notice” if they were “reported on specifically and transparently,” but “the Finance Ministry has not yet received any specific report on material needs, so neither an examination nor a decision can be made.” However, the journalists’ sources in the German government say that Chancellor Olaf Scholz allegedly directly “forbade” the Defense Ministry from sending the Finance Ministry such financial requests for unscheduled assistance to Ukraine. 

The Ministry of Defense says that because of the Ministry of Finance, Germany was unable to implement more than 30 high-priority deliveries to Ukraine for a total of 3.87 billion euros. In particular, this concerns spare parts for equipment, artillery ammunition, drones and armored vehicles.

Reaction of German politicians

The head of the Bundestag’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael Roth of the SPD party, which is part of the ruling coalition, harshly criticized the disruption of arms supplies to Ukraine and plans to cut spending on Ukraine in next year’s German budget.

“The Ukrainian army has gone on the offensive again for the first time in months, and the country now needs the full support of its most important military ally in Europe – Germany. Instead, the discussion about future funding for military aid looks like a covert shirking of responsibility by Germany. We cannot make our security dependent on budgetary restrictions,” the Spiegel newspaper quotes the MP as saying .

There was also clear criticism from the opposition. For example, CDU MP Roderich Kiesewetter told reporters that refusing to finance military support for Ukraine from the budget “would de facto mean that Ukraine would be abandoned.”

However, there are also opposing opinions among German politicians. Thus, the well-known left-wing populist Sarah Wagenknecht, who heads a political bloc named after herself, called for a complete end to support for Ukraine in connection with new revelations about the attacks on Nord Stream, writes Rheinische Post . She also wants to seek “compensation” from Ukraine for the destroyed Nord Stream.

Wagenknecht has previously repeatedly advocated for ending aid to Ukraine, lifting sanctions against Russia, and refusing to interfere in conflicts between countries. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance party is considered an analogue of the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (also sympathetic to Russia), but only on the left side of the political spectrum.

(C)UNIAN 2024