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Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) with Army Inspector Alfons Mais at an appointment in Lower Saxony
Photo: Philipp Schulze / dpa
Russia is attacking Ukraine - and the Bundeswehr can hardly do anything from the point of view of the army inspector Alfons Mais.
After years of austerity, the troops are "more or less empty" and have only limited options vis-à-vis Russia, the lieutenant general wrote in the Linkedin network on Thursday.
Federal Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD), on the other hand, rejected doubts about the Bundeswehr's ability to act in the crisis.
It is unusual for a high-ranking soldier to express his criticism so openly.
Mais wrote: »In my 41st year of peacetime service I would not have believed that I would have to experience another war.
And the Bundeswehr, the army that I am allowed to lead, is more or less empty.« He warned: »The options that we can offer politicians to support the alliance are extremely limited.«
Mais called for a reorganization of the Bundeswehr.
"We all saw it coming and were unable to get our arguments through to draw and implement the conclusions of the Crimean annexation," he wrote.
"It doesn't feel good!
I'm eaten!"
»Out of deep frustration«
Defense Minister Lambrecht, on the other hand, emphasized that in the current situation Germany would fulfill "every request" from the eastern NATO allies.
After the reinforcements that had already taken place in Lithuania, she also instructed that German support for air surveillance in Romania be expanded, she said.
"More will follow," the minister announced after a meeting of the Defense Committee in the Bundestag.
"And we're preparing everything."
When asked about Mais's criticism, Lambrecht said: "I can only advise everyone who bears responsibility to use all their strength right now to meet these challenges.
That is the order of the day.«
The chairwoman of the Bundestag Defense Committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP), however, showed understanding for Mais' freak out.
Mais' statements were apparently made "out of deep frustration," she said in Berlin.
She shares the criticism that the Bundeswehr had been underfunded for a long time.
The grand coalition had “done nothing to strengthen the Bundeswehr”.
Against the background of the Russian attack, the Bundestag Defense Commissioner Eva Högl (SPD) also expressed doubts about the operational readiness of the Bundeswehr.
"The Bundeswehr's cold start capability is not what it should be," Högl told the Phoenix broadcaster.
"I'm so angry with us because we failed historically"
Former Federal Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer expressed her deep shock at the military escalation in the Ukraine conflict.
"I'm so angry at us because we've failed historically," wrote the former CDU leader on Twitter.
"After Georgia, Crimea and Donbass, we haven't prepared anything (...) that would have really deterred Putin."
The former inspector general of the Bundeswehr and chairman of the NATO military committee, Harald Kujat, warned of an escalation of the war against Ukraine.
Should Russia take over large parts of Ukraine, "NATO troops and Russian troops will also face each other directly on the border with Poland," Kujat told the editorial network Germany.
In the Baltic states, fears of a Russian attack are already “massive”.
mrc/AFP
