Question about arms deliveries
Kubicki protects Scholz
4/23/2022 1:42 am
Chancellor Scholz has so far refused to deliver heavy military equipment to Ukraine. However, members of the Greens and Liberals support the shipment of heavy weapons. FDP Vice Kubicki disagrees – he defends Scholz against attacks from his party colleagues.
Deputy FDP chairman Wolfgang Kubicki has defended Chancellor Olaf Scholz against attacks because of his stance on arms deliveries to Ukraine. “I believe that Olaf Scholz’s bashing has now reached a level that is unacceptable,” said the liberal at the Ludwig Erhard summit in Gmund am Tegernsee.
Germany is currently doing what it can afford. “What we can do is: we can give money. And we can lift all the restrictions that we still have on arms deliveries to Ukraine by the defense industry.” The Bundeswehr itself can deliver “nothing more, and nothing essential”.
The Vice President of the Bundestag thus contrasted with his party colleague Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann. The chairwoman of the Defense Committee of the Bundestag is pushing for the immediate delivery of heavy weapons from Germany as well. Rather humorously, Kubicki, who comes from Schleswig-Holstein, defended Scholz’s communication style, which has often been criticized as unclear: “He communicates differently than people from Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia imagine. He’s from Hamburg, Hanseatic, North German – we’re a bit lazy about languages, anyway consequent.”
Scholz remains in ring exchange with Slovakia
Scholz wants to continue supplying weapons to Ukraine, but remains cautious when it comes to heavy equipment such as tanks. In an interview with “Spiegel” he affirmed that NATO and Germany should not become warring parties in the conflict with Russia – and warned of the danger of a nuclear war. The Union pushed for a Bundestag vote on the delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine.
“The military equipment must be able to be used without lengthy training, without further logistics, without soldiers from our countries,” said Scholz in the interview on deliveries to Ukraine. “The quickest way to do this is with weapons from former Soviet stocks, which Ukrainians are well acquainted with.”
It is therefore “no coincidence that several Eastern European NATO partners are now supplying such weapons and no ally has yet delivered Western battle tanks,” said Scholz. “We can gradually fill the gaps caused by these deliveries with the partners with replacements from Germany, as we just discussed in the case of Slovenia.”
According to information from government circles on Thursday, Germany is planning a ring exchange for tanks with the country: the NATO ally is to deliver the T-72 main battle tank, which was still developed in the Soviet Union, to Kyiv. In return, Slovenia is to receive the Marder armored personnel carrier and the Fuchs wheeled armored vehicle from Germany.