As German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is facing growing criticism for not sending more arms to Ukraine, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht announced an agreement to send heavy weapons to the Ukrainians via Eastern European countries.
Under the plan, Eastern European countries will send Soviet-made equipment to Ukraine, and Germany will then replenish the stocks with German-made weapons. “It’s about tanks, armored vehicles, or other options individual countries are able to give,” Lambrecht said.
Lambrecht didn’t announce a specific transfer of arms that would happen but said the agreement will deliver heavy weapons to Ukraine “in the next few days.” According to a report from DW, Slovenia is expected to send a large number T-72 tanks to Ukraine. In exchange, Germany will send Slovenia Marder tanks and Fox wheeled tanks.
Ukrainian forces are only trained to use older Russian-made weapons. Lambrecht said Germany will train Ukrainian forces on how to use German-made Panzerhaubitze 2000 tanks that the Netherlands is reportedly sending to Ukraine.
Lambrecht said that Germany couldn’t send the Panzerhaubitze 2000s itself because the German military doesn’t have the stocks. Germany has depleted its own military stockpile by sending arms to Kyiv, and Scholz is now looking to German arms makers to send weapons directly to Ukraine.
Scholz has come under pressure from his own coalition government for not acting fast enough to send heavy weapons to Ukraine. Berlin has also come under criticism from Ukraine, which recently rejected a visit from German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier over alleged ties to Russia.
I’ve always thought Germany was smarter than this, allowing the brown-shirt slope-heads to take over again, …and daring Russia to throw the switch on their energy life-line.
To be fair, Germany is only giving stuff to her own NATO allies; it’s THOSE fools who are trying to antagonize russia by pouring weapons into Ukraine. Although even that is cynical; I think they know that weapons driven into western Ukraine will NEVER reach the Donbass some 1200 km away, and so never play any role in the fighting; they’re doing this to dump off 40 or 50 year old, barely serviceable soviet junk in order to upgrade themselves with much newer, more capable German and US weapons systems for FREE. A Hell of a Deal for Poland and Slovakia.
Ok, perhaps that’s Scholtz. Presumably he’s getting it in one ear from the German oligarchs heavily invested in Russia and very upset over Nordstrom 2; and, in the other from Washington & Brussels.
But he did cave on Nordstrom 2. They did play a false hand at Minsk 1 & 2. And there’s no finesse in Fraulien Ursula’s gleeful blood lust.
Gonna be a lot of chilly NATO countries next winter.
I believe this too. If things aren’t settled to Russia’s satisfaction by fall, he’ll turn the lights off in Western Europe, send the price of oil to $200, and put the capitalist economies in a nose dive.
Is it the “greens” or even perhaps the “christians” who are trying to sell more lethal weapons against the REAL Christian Orthodox Russians who are fighting an existential war in Ukraine against USA∕EU∕NATO who want to rule the world?
Europe should get a grip on itself. Russia is not the USSR. It is a middling economic country — with nukes. Politics should not be mired in 20th C paradigms of endless feuds and bloody war. NATO is an empire built on armaments and military looking for an “enemy.”
Russia, in case you haven’t noticed has invaded another country and is reducing that countries cities to rubble. That is not OK as we say.
And you cheerlead more weapons being poured in as if that will end those cities being turned into rubble.
I support arming the Ukrainians so they can defend themselves against the invader. It looks like they want to fight.
Ukraine has a long tradition of switching sides in the middle of a war. If Oleg the Plumber gets it through his head that his country is being used by The West™ as a political pawn, watch how fast those weapons and fighters turn around and hook up with Russia again. As long as The West™ can maintain the narrative that Russia is the Bad Guy- and granted, right now they’re not helping things- Ukraine will fight. Show them another way, and they’ll turn on a dime.
It looks to me at the moment that Ukraine is on Ukraine’s side. Once the Russians leave, I would be surprised and disappointed if the Ukrainians attacked anybody. I certainly at that point would not support them. Given what has transpired so far I think friendly relations between Ukraine and Russia are 2 generations out.
It’s far more complicated than that, although we wouldn’t know that watching US media. Eastern Ukraine is pro Russian; they actually are, in fact, Russian; and the west has been making war on the east for 8 years now. Ukraine is becoming Yugoslavia in 1990; BEST possible outcome is a negotiated settlement that lets the Donbas go, accepts that Crimea is already gone, and stops the killing. The reprisals have already started, on both sides; and if there’s any legitimate investigation of the reported “war crimes”, I expect we’ll see lots of blame falling on both sides.
Well tough, a line was drawn and agreed upon at the dissolution of the USSR, Russia signed it and Ukraine signed it. Litigating border disputes is a recipe for endless war. The ethnic Russians in Ukraine can either leave, or learn to get along in Ukraine.
well, you’re entitled to your opinion, but the ethnic Russians in Donbas aren’t bound by that and certainly won’t do that. I do wonder though if you had the same feeling about the Kurds in Saddam’s Iraq, or the Albanians in Kosovo,, since US policy was just the opposite.
Well what if Putin found a few psychos in Alabama and started arming them to create the Neo-Confederacy I am pretty sure something could get going. Movements of National Liberation have been used and misused by great powers to carve up existing countries to their hearts desire. I view them with suspicion. In syria for instance the USA arming “moderates” in an attempt to bring down the regime was a mistake, Russia’s support of the regime I thought was legitimate. The Ugandan ambassador to the UN made a plea some months ago for everybody to live within their borders and to get along. Even though the borders they have aren’t the borders they want.
That would be best (learning to live with the borders as they are); and if the US and NATO actually adhered to that, then they would have the moral high ground. But as we have seen, with the Kurds in Iraq and Syria, and the Albanians in Kosovo, and US support for the Uighurs in China, we constantly insert ourselves into such disputes, and are only too happy to support the separatists when we dislike the parent regime, or, as in Yemen with the Houthis, or Georgia with the Ossetians, alternatively give unwavering support to the oppressing regime no matter how odious, when it suits us. So in this instance, as with Georgia/Ossetia, the US and NATO don’t have a leg to stand on, have no moral high ground, and should shut the F up; since our only real motive seems to be to injure Russia, as long as all the dying is done by someone else (because that’s what we really like!).
Actually, it looks like they have little choice. Blinken, our top diplomat said that the war would last at least through 2022 and our top general said it would last years but not decades. So, you are in lockstep with some good company. The war party wants to use Ukraine to bring Russia to ruins regardless of how many Ukrainians die. You can try and make it sound noble, but in fact it’s just much more death.
John , just like NATO did on it`s Grand Tour of the M.E then , do you know what the word HIPOCRISY means.
It was “OK” then.
That too was a crime, I was against that. In particular I thought our intervention in Syria was wrong, and Russia’s was OK as they were supporting the government and not the rebels.
“in case you haven’t noticed has invaded another country and is reducing that countries cities to rubble.” That is the USA’s way.
Russia waited 8 years, trying to solve the situation caused by the US removal of the Ukie govt in 2014 and the Nuland mob’s refusal to negotiate the Donbass special case, and finally went in, NOT to destroy (the Ukies do that) but to get rid of NAZIS (don’t pretend you didn’t know) and military equipment. Russia lives next door to Ukraine and does NOT want a neighbor of rubble.That is your technique, and the EU will have to pay to fix it.
Look at your own US and “allies” faults and let Russia deal with hers.
Based on that 8 year limit, Russia should go back to Georgia and take more land, decades have passed for Narva, Estonia, he should take that too, and add Senkaku Islands, Japan.
Maybe they should. How about that?
The “eastern european members of NATO” are playing the US (in particular) but also the western members of NATO for fools. For years, these countries have failed to meet their spending obligations, and have retained 40-or-more year old soviet systems (of dubious operational status) because they didn’t want to spend on updated, NATO-compatible equipment; now they get to dump their old junk and have it replaced, for free, with new German and US made equipment of vastly greater capability. And, they get to pretend they are “defenders of freedom” for doing so. Nothing is better than “charitable giving” when it not only costs the giver NOTHING, but actually turns a profit for them. And our media acts like these charlatans are heroic supporters of freedom. What nonsense.
You’re thinking they all can operate on the Israel model, like Zelinsky; but there will be strings. Not only will they have to build and maintain a modern force, but that force will have to be productive in terms of dead Russian soldiers.
By continuing to shovel weapons into Ukraine, the US/NATO/EU is virtually guaranteeing that Russia will simply take the entire country and probably annex the whole damned thing. In that case, look for the western border of Ukraine to become Iron Curtain Part II.