Preliminary talks about the ring exchange
Bund: “There is a regular stream of weapons”
4/20/2022, 5:37 p.m
According to Green Party politician Hofreiter, Germany is slowing down arms deliveries to Ukraine. The federal government rejects this: There is permanent military support. In addition, the planned exchange of rings is already being coordinated with Eastern European NATO partners.
Despite the cancellation of the delivery of heavy weapons from Bundeswehr stocks, the federal government sees no delays in military support for Ukraine. “There is a regular, continuous stream of weapons, ammunition and equipment heading towards Ukraine, and this stream shouldn’t stop,” said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit. The Greens European politician Anton Hofreiter had warned that Germany’s reticence threatened a world war-like expansion of the conflict.
Hebestreit said that Ukraine is being supported and upgraded by a number of countries. He referred to deliveries that had just arrived from the USA and commitments from Great Britain, the Netherlands or Poland. Germany is helping “with all kinds of material” and is in talks with the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense to organize further deliveries. “I cannot tell that there will be a delay,” said the government spokesman.
Hofreiter had previously told ZDF that the problem with Germany’s attitude was “that we are slowing down the sanctions, slowing down the delivery of weapons, and there is a risk that the war will drag on longer and longer”. But the greater the danger “that other countries will be attacked and that we will then slide into an extended de facto Third World War”. Hofreiter described the German government’s considerations as “good” that Eastern European countries should deliver familiar weapon systems of Russian and Soviet design to the Ukraine and Germany then fill the resulting gaps with modern material.
Ring exchange met with approval
Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised further military and financial support for Ukraine in the fight against the Russian invasion troops on Tuesday. He assured Eastern European NATO partners who could deliver Soviet-designed weapons from their old stocks to Ukraine, German support in procuring replacements.
Economics Minister Robert Habeck “expressly” welcomed such a ring exchange principle. “Whatever equipment and weapons that can be used quickly in other countries is now delivered to Ukraine, and Germany will then promptly send replacements to these countries,” Habeck told the Rheinische Post. The federal government is “in exchange with industry and international partners about smart, quickly effective solutions”. Government spokesman Hebestreit said when asked whether there were already concrete agreements on this ring exchange: “There are more concrete preliminary talks about it.” The talks are not yet so far “that it would be ready for signature”.
Bundeswehr: Delivery of heavy weapons not possible
The deputy inspector general of the Bundeswehr, Markus Laubenthal, confirmed on ZDF that the Bundeswehr could not deliver heavy weapons. A spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Defense said in Berlin that it was still the case that the main weapon systems were needed in order for the Bundeswehr to carry out its parliamentary mandate.
SPD faction leader Rolf Mützenich was disappointed by the criticism of the coalition partners on Chancellor Scholz’s Ukraine policy. In a letter to the parliamentary group members, he felt that “individual comments and appearances from the coalition parties” in the debate about arms deliveries were “bitter”. In it, Mützenich called on his own faction to unite.
From the coalition partners Greens and FDP, in addition to Hofreiter, the FDP politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann in particular has been criticizing Scholz’s actions for days and is pushing for more support, including heavy weapons. The chairwoman of the Bundestag Defense Committee welcomed the ring exchange principle on Twitter on Tuesday evening; von Scholz, however, had “not yet come up with anything concrete”, she criticized at the same time.