WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s prime minister said on Tuesday he was concerned about Germany’s attitude to Russia’s military buildup on the Ukrainian border, as the Wall Street Journal reported that Berlin was preventing member country Estonia from ‘NATO, to provide military support Kiev.
The American daily reported on Friday that Germany was refusing to issue authorizations for the export of weapons of German origin to Ukraine, which is preparing against a possible Russian invasion.
“I watch with concern the situation in Ukraine and the reactions of our German neighbors to the Russian threat,” Mateusz Morawiecki wrote in a Facebook post.
“A great disappointment is, among other things, that Germany refuses its consent for the supply of weapons from Estonia to a state which is preparing to defend itself against an aggressor.”
Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks, quoted by the German daily Bild, said Berlin’s policy on arms exports to Ukraine was “a big mistake”.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his country had not supported arms exports in recent years.
A government spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Poland has long urged Germany to take a tougher stance on Russia, including on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which is to link Russia and Germany through the Baltic Sea.
For some Central and Eastern European countries, this infrastructure supposed to bring Russian gas to Germany will give President Vladimir Putin undue influence over the region.
(Report Alan Charlish and Pawel Florkiewicz Warsaw, Madelaine Chambers and Andreas Rinke Berlin; French version Diana Mandi, told by Sophie Louet)