CDU/CSU vice in “ntv early start”
Union wants to support traffic lights in the Russian crisis
02/23/2022 10:03 am
Despite all the criticism – such as the restrained arms export policy – the deputy head of the Union parliamentary group has words of praise for the course of the federal government in the Russia crisis. The CDU and CSU were looking for a “shoulder closure”.
The deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, Johann David Wadephul, praised the traffic light coalition in view of the Russia crisis. “During this time we are looking for solidarity and support the federal government,” says Wadephul in “ntv-Frühstart”. The government is doing “a good figure”. It was urgently needed and he was grateful to Chancellor Scholz for stopping the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Wadephul is critical of the German government’s blockade on supplying German-made weapons to Ukraine. “It’s difficult to understand,” said the foreign and defense policy expert. “Above all, I think it’s wrong that we prevent others from equipping Ukraine. That applies to the Estonians, who wanted to deliver old artillery weapons. Germany should have supported that.”
People consider going “to the woods”.
As a foreign and defense policy expert, Wadepuhl has often traveled to Ukraine and is in contact with numerous people in Kiev. The atmosphere on site is very depressed. “Everyone is preparing for a war, they are in crisis mode, they stock up, they see where they can find shelter in case there are bombings or attacks. Some are also talking about going into the woods,” he said Wadephul. “These are things we can’t even imagine.”
The conflict is not far away, there is only one country between Germany and Ukraine, Poland. “The danger is getting closer in our direction. That’s why there is every reason to show solidarity with Ukraine and to support the state and the people.”
misjudged Putin
Basically, Wadephul considers the German arms export policy to be questionable. “If you are sitting in the Ukraine and are being severely threatened by an army armed to the teeth, and then Germany is the first to agree to military hospitals, which of course presupposes that there are injured people who need to be treated, and then helmets are offered, then it can you see that as cynical from a Ukrainian point of view.” Nevertheless, Wadephul states that arms deliveries from Germany would not change the balance of power and would not prevent Putin from intervening.
Overall, Wadephul believes the West underestimated Putin and was too naïve to him. “We should have listened more closely,” says Wadephul. “In 2007, before the Munich Security Conference, he said that the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century was the collapse of the Soviet Union. I think that’s an outrageous sentence that, as a German, you would of course answer differently.” At this point at the latest, according to Wadephul, one should have noticed “that he wants more or something else, that the post-war order is not important to him”.