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Ambassador of Ukraine Andriy Melnyk
Photo: Susanne Hübner / imago images
Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht sees this as a “very clear signal: we stand by your side”: the federal government will deliver 5,000 military protective helmets to Ukraine.
However, the government in Kiev is demanding large-scale deliveries of arms to defend against a possible Russian attack.
The Ukrainian ambassador Andriy Melnyk immediately expressed his disappointment: In an interview with SPIEGEL, he described the planned delivery of protective helmets as "purely symbolic politics" that ignore the urgent needs of the Ukrainian army.
"We need defensive weapons to defend our country," said the diplomat, "we have repeatedly informed the Federal Government of this."
Melnyk also contradicted the impression that Ukraine had specifically asked for protective equipment in Germany in the past few days.
Rather, the military experts from the embassy asked a general question to many NATO nations as to whether such a delivery was possible.
The protective helmets can only be used to equip reservists who are currently being mobilized.
"That doesn't mean that the issue of the urgently needed delivery of arms is off the table," said Melnyk.
"That's just a drop in the bucket, it's not even a consolation," Melnyk told the dpa news agency.
»Ukraine is expecting a 180-degree U-turn from the federal government, a true paradigm shift.«
Criticism of the delivery of the helmets also came from Florian Hahn, the defense policy spokesman for the Union faction: “The federal government is trying to give the impression that it stands very closely on the side of Ukraine.
I think it would be downright cynical to prove that with a delivery of 5,000 safety helmets.«
The CDU foreign politician Norbert Röttgen wrote on Twitter that with the delivery of the helmets "the federal government is only making things worse for itself and for Germany".
It was "embarrassing to express the dimension of this crisis in military helmets".
Criticism also came from the left: "Neither helmets nor howitzers, arms exports are not a contribution to the urgently needed diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict," Sevim Dağdelen, spokeswoman for disarmament policy for her group, told SPIEGEL.
"The federal government should concentrate fully on its mediating role in the Normandy format and work towards a negotiated solution that guarantees security and stability for all sides."
as /mgb/dpa