Heavy weapons for Ukraine
Melnyk reprimands Scholz: “Great disappointment and bitterness”
4/20/2022 7:06 am
After much criticism, Chancellor Scholz now supports the demands that Ukraine receive heavy weapons – but not directly from Germany. For this, he is not only receiving sharp criticism again from the Ukrainian Ambassador Melnyk.
Despite his recent announcements, Chancellor Olaf Scholz is still under pressure in his own coalition over armaments aid for Ukraine. For the Green politician Anton Hofreiter and the FDP politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, Scholz’s statements on Tuesday evening do not go far enough. The Ukrainian Ambassador Andriy Melnyk was also dissatisfied.
Scholz has promised Ukraine to finance direct arms deliveries from German industry. “We asked the German armaments industry to tell us what material they can deliver in the near future,” he said on Tuesday. “Ukraine has now adopted a selection from that list and we are providing them with the money to purchase it.” As before, these include anti-tank weapons, anti-aircraft equipment, ammunition “and also anything that can be used in an artillery battle”.
Melnyk criticized Scholz’s announcement as insufficient. The statements made by the SPD politician were received “with great disappointment and bitterness” in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, said Melnyk. Germany’s willingness to provide additional funds for armaments is welcomed. However, there are still many more open questions than answers.
“Weapons we need are not on the list”
“The thesis that the Bundeswehr is no longer able to deliver anything to Ukraine is incomprehensible,” said Melnyk. The force has more than 400 Marder armored personnel carriers, around 100 of which are used for education and training and can therefore be immediately handed over to Ukraine. According to his findings, the Bundeswehr also has around 800 Fuchs armored transport vehicles, most of which are not in use and could therefore be sent to Ukraine.
“The delivery of Panzerhaubitzen 2000 would also be very important.” There are about 120 of these long-range artillery pieces in the Bundeswehr, Melnyk said. In the ZDF “heute journal” he had also complained that there were no heavy weapons on the list of possible arms deliveries that Ukraine had received from Germany a few weeks ago. “The weapons we need are not on this list.”
However, Scholz did not speak of a direct delivery of heavy weapons from Germany on Tuesday. NATO partners who supply Soviet-designed weapons to Ukraine could, however, receive replacements from Germany. “It’s something we do with a lot of other people who are following the same path as we are.” Immediate usability and availability are important for weapon deliveries. According to Scholz, however, there should hardly be any deliveries from Bundeswehr stocks. “Here we have to recognize that the possibilities we have are reaching their limits,” he said.
“Too little too late”
Green politician Hofreiter told t-online: “The support announced by Olaf Scholz for our partner countries in arms deliveries to Ukraine is another step in the right direction, but it’s not enough.” He also told the editorial network Germany that it was really crucial that Ukraine quickly got heavier weapons. The FDP defense politician Strack-Zimmermann welcomed on Twitter that Scholz would take up the proposal to supply Ukraine with weapons that can be used immediately via Eastern European partners, which Germany would then compensate. “But you have to fight for freedom and human rights, you don’t get them for free. There hasn’t been enough concrete information on that today.”
Criticism also came from the opposition Union. “Too little – too late”, that remains the bitter balance after Scholz’s press conference, wrote Deputy Union faction leader Johann Wadephul on Twitter. “Germany is still not supplying heavy weapons, ie it is abandoning Ukraine.” The defense policy spokesman for the AfD parliamentary group, Rüdiger Lucassen, called for a decision by parliament. With a delivery of heavy weapons, “the Federal Republic will clearly not become a war party under international law,” he told the German Press Agency. “However, there is a risk that Moscow will see things differently. The federal government must calculate this considerable risk and therefore submit a decision of this scope to the German Bundestag for a vote.”
Esken meets Melnyk
The SPD chairwoman Saskia Esken wants to meet with the Ukrainian ambassador Melnyk this Wednesday. “Especially in times when our hearts are heavy and the debates sometimes heated, it is all the more valuable to maintain open and trusting conversations,” she wrote about the conversation on Twitter. Melnyk made it clear that he was hoping for the go-ahead for the delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine. He also expects a supply stop for Russian gas and oil. The entire federal government made up of SPD, Greens and FDP has rejected a general energy embargo.
In the past few weeks, Melnyk had repeatedly condemned the SPD’s earlier Russia course and called for more German arms deliveries to Ukraine. There was a tough exchange of blows at the weekend when former SPD Federal Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel criticized “targeted attacks” on Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in a guest article for “Spiegel” and accused Melnyk of “conspiracy theories”.
Before Esken’s meeting with Melnyk, SPD leader Lars Klingbeil spoke out in favor of clear EU accession prospects for Ukraine. “The people of Ukraine are Europeans. They fight for our European values and with great determination against Putin’s brutal troops,” he said. Ukraine applied for EU membership shortly after Russia’s war of aggression began and is pushing for an accelerated process. Klingbeil was also present at an earlier meeting on April 6th.