“Disaster for Ukraine”
Strack-Zimmermann tells Scholz his Taurus no
April 7, 2024, 12:04 a.m
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The FDP defense politician Strack-Zimmermann is struggling with the Chancellor’s decision not to deliver any Taurus to Ukraine. The long debate is helping Russia to adapt to new military logistics. She accuses Scholz of squinting at surveys.
The chairwoman of the Defense Committee, Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, calls the party-political discussion about a delivery of Taurus cruise missiles a “catastrophe for Ukraine”: With the system, Russian supplies could have been interrupted “at an early stage,” said the FDP. Politician for the “Lübecker Nachrichten”. The ten-month discussion ensures “that the Russians will also prepare for this and move their supply routes from the Kerch Bridge in Crimea to another route.”
The case reminds her of “the nine-month-long debate about whether or not Germany would deliver infantry fighting vehicles and battle tanks to Ukraine,” Strack-Zimmermann told the paper. “In the meantime, the Russian army had dug trenches packed with mines over hundreds of kilometers in eastern Ukraine to prevent a possible Ukrainian counteroffensive with the corresponding tanks.”
Scholz’s no probably has something to do with the election campaign
When asked whether Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Taurus stance could have something to do with the election campaign, the FDP politician replied: “I don’t think so.” The Chancellor, like Angela Merkel back then, is guided by surveys every day. She is of the opinion that “we don’t have to make decisions based on surveys. It is our job to make decisions based on the situation and then explain them to people.”
Strack-Zimmermann praised the fact that Finance Minister Christian Lindner is aiming for a significant increase in defense spending from 2028. “I am very grateful to him for planning more resources for the defense budget in the medium term. After investing the 100 billion euro special fund in the Bundeswehr, we will permanently have the two percent of the gross domestic product for defense required by NATO in the budget have to deposit,” said the FDP politician. In the future, every federal government will have to be measured by whether it has taken care of the security of the Federal Republic or not. “Because without security, everything else is nothing.”