War in Ukraine – That’s what politicians say about Swiss ammunition deliveries – News


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This is how the Swiss parties are reacting to the federal government’s decision that Germany is not allowed to deliver Swiss ammunition to Ukraine.

On Sunday it became known that Switzerland had prevented arms deliveries from Germany with Swiss ammunition to Ukraine. After this decision, Mitte Party President Gerhard Pfister asked the Federal Council to allow the ammunition delivery. In a tweet he wrote that he had the authority to enable the export of Swiss arms components to Ukraine.

This is how the parties react

Jürg Grossen, President of the Green Liberals, says that the Federal Council cannot decide this on its own, but should submit a proposal to Parliament: “Weapons or at least ammunition that are delivered via Germany should also be used in Ukraine. If we want that, we would have to initiate a change in the law.” This could already be decided in the special session at the beginning of May, says Grossen.

The leader of the Greens, Aline Trede, sees it differently: “Switzerland’s neutrality clearly prohibits it from supplying weapons to war-mongering nations or indirectly war-mongering nations.” Therefore, the decision of the federal government is correct.

Neutrality clearly prohibits Switzerland from supplying arms to belligerent nations or indirectly belligerent nations.

SVP Councilor of States Werner Salzmann also rejects a relaxation of the law and refers to the law of neutrality and the War Material Act. “The primary concern is neutrality, because we are violating the law of neutrality with such exports to countries involved in the war,” says Salzmann.

It is clear that Swiss neutrality must not be curtailed at its core.

FDP President Thierry Burkart says that an adjustment to arms export legislation must be discussed. “But one thing is clear: Swiss neutrality must not be curtailed at its core. This means that direct deliveries to warring parties should not be allowed in the future either.”

Therefore, the Seco has rejected the requests

At the request of SRF, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) confirmed that two requests from Germany to pass on ammunition previously received from Switzerland to Ukraine had been received. “The two inquiries from Germany were not about ammunition for the ‘Marder’ infantry fighting vehicle,” writes the Seco.

For exports of war material to government end recipients, Switzerland basically requires a so-called non-re-export declaration from the recipient country – i.e. the recipient country undertakes not to pass on the war material received from Switzerland without Switzerland’s prior consent.

“Based on Article 5 paragraph 2 letter a War Material Ordinance Requests for the export of war material will not be approved if the country of destination is involved in an internal or international armed conflict,” Seco explains to SRF about the decision.

Due to the duration and intensity of the fighting between Russia and Ukraine, both countries are involved in an international armed conflict, writes the Seco. For this reason, war material exports to both countries must be rejected by law.

On May 1, 2022, the War Material Act, revised as a result of the correction initiative, will come into force, where the rejection criterion mentioned is then in Article 22a paragraph 2 letter a of the War Material Act, according to Seco.

In addition, a new regulation was recently introduced so that no individual components of weapon systems reach Russia or Ukraine via European countries, the Seco explains.

For all final exports to non-governmental final recipients, a confirmation must be submitted that the war material will not be re-exported, sold, rented, loaned or donated to either the Russian Federation or Ukraine. This is a precautionary measure.

What are the Russians doing about Western weapons?


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Even if no war material or weapon parts reach the conflict region from Switzerland, in addition to anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles and ammunition, Ukraine is now apparently also receiving heavy weapons such as artillery pieces and tanks from the West. Moscow doesn’t like that at all and has repeatedly warned the United States in particular against arms deliveries to Ukraine. “But so far the Russians have only protested verbally – they simply can’t do much about it,” says David Nauer, former SRF correspondent in Moscow.

In order to stop the arms transports coming from Poland, Romania or Slovakia to the east of Ukraine on many different routes, the Russians would have to bomb the west of the Ukraine much more heavily than before, for example to interrupt traffic routes. “They are obviously not ready for this yet,” says Nauer. But the Russians will probably not simply stand by and watch the arms deliveries to Ukraine from the West forever. “It will be dangerous if the Russians don’t achieve their war goals of conquering at least parts of eastern Ukraine,” believes Nauer.

According to experts, the Kremlin could then possibly order a mobilization in order to have massively more troops available or even use weapons of mass destruction such as tactical atomic bombs or chemical weapons, says Nauer. “Russian state television is already blatantly threatening to use nuclear bombs.” After all, the Americans currently see no signs that such an escalation is imminent.

The origin of the inquiries is unclear

The application rejected by Switzerland did not come from the federal government, but from industry, a German government spokesman told SRF at a media conference on Monday. The Ministry of Defense cannot comment on the exact time of the application because the application came from industry.

The Seco, on the other hand, writes to SRF that Germany’s inquiries did not come from industry, but from a German authority.

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