The situation in eastern Ukraine is becoming increasingly dramatic. After four months of assault, Russia’s invading forces yesterday captured the entire Luhansk province. A significant partial success for the Kremlin.
One reason for this: the Ukrainian military’s relentless underarmment. There is a shortage of not only heavy artillery, but also armored vehicles. And finally the West reacts!
“To move rapidly into areas under enemy fire, armies need armored vehicles. So France will supply significant quantities of VAB armored personnel carriers equipped with weapons,” said French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu (36) last week.
The vehicles, as evidenced by photos from Slovakia, arrived in Ukraine over the weekend.
And France is not alone! Great Britain, Estonia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Canada or Australia – all countries supply Western-style armored vehicles to Ukraine.
Only the federal government is again hesitating, not wanting to deliver more than 1,000 of its armored vehicles from the Bundeswehr stock to Ukraine.
Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (57, SPD) has again claimed that Germany will “always act in close coordination with its allies” on the issue of arms exports.
The opposite seems to be the case. This has now angered their own factions.
“In view of Russia’s heavy action in eastern Ukraine, it is imperative that the federal government supply infantry fighting vehicles or at least armored vehicles. Like France, the Netherlands, Canada and many other allies are already ,” Green MP Anton Hoffreiter told BILD.
Hofreiter explains: “Russia uses artillery barrages, for which many Ukrainian soldiers hunt every day because they have no defense when moving from A to B. German armored vehicles, such as Marder, Fuchs or Dingo, Could save countless lives here.”
An even stronger criticism of the government of Olaf Scholz (64, SPD) comes from Florian Hahn (48, CSU), spokesman for the Union’s defense policy. One has to ask himself whether the federal government’s refusal to deliver armored vehicles to Ukraine is “merely gross negligence or willful in providing assistance”.
The fact that Chancellor Scholz declared that German weapons deliveries were taking place “in close coordination with our allies” while Germany was one of the few countries to refrain from delivering armored personnel carriers or armored personnel carriers to Ukraine kept denying, “was really weird”.
Introvert. Proud beer specialist. Coffee geek. Typical thinker. Pop culture trailblazer. Music practitioner. Explorer.
