"Shame on Chancellor Scholz": US media rages after German tank delivery to Ukraine
Created: 07/26/2022, 16:21
By: Patrick Mayer
The German Gepard tank: The first three examples were delivered to Ukraine from Germany.
(Archive photo) © IMAGO/Björn Trotsky
Germany delivers the first Cheetah tanks to Ukraine - but fewer and later.
US media and a CDU politician sharply attacked Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Munich/Berlin/Washington - Cheetahs.
leopards.
Marten.
Fox.
What sounds like an excursion into the animal kingdom describes the arsenal of tanks in the German armed forces.
Ukraine would like to have as many of them as possible during the war with Russia, after all the specimens from Germany are considered modern or at least modernized.
War in Ukraine: Germany delivers the first three Gepard tanks to Kyiv - but fewer than expected
But the traffic light federal government under Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) hesitated for a long time with the delivery of heavy weapons.
The first three Cheetah anti-aircraft tanks have now arrived in Ukraine - five months after the start of the war by Moscow ruler Vladimir Putin.
What Berlin sells as a success raises questions.
Because: Instead of 15, as last announced, only three have just been delivered.
Originally, at the beginning of July, it was still said that Germany actually wanted to provide 30 "cheetahs".
"For the defense of critical infrastructure", as Federal Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) had confirmed countless times in interviews.
In the video: Compact - The most important news about the Russia-Ukraine war
The fact that Germany is now delivering so late provokes heavy criticism, especially from the media in the USA.
As the respected
Wall Street Journal
wrote in a political op-ed: “What a disgrace for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the world stage, and what a political embarrassment at home.
Even Berlin's announcement of this military aid came two months after Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.”
German arms delivery: Chancellor Scholz is heavily criticized in Poland and the USA
According to the report by the American newspaper, Scholz's main strategy is "to delay the tanks and other heavy weapons, presumably in the hope that a negotiated solution will eventually make them superfluous".
The allies and the Kremlin would be watching Berlin's actions closely, "and it would help Mr. Scholz's credibility if the next batch of cheetahs moved less like turtles," the
Wall Street Journal
commentary continues.
While Chancellor Scholz was on vacation in the Bavarian Allgäu, international criticism of his policy in the Ukraine war continued.
On the contrary.
Apparently she's gaining weight.
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What a shame for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the world stage.
Wall Street Journal on timid German tank deliveries
At the beginning of June, Poland's President Andrzej Duda said in an interview with
BILD
: "I am amazed at all the talks that are being held with Putin at the moment.
By Chancellor Scholz, by President Emmanuel Macron (
French President, ed
.).
These talks are useless.
What do they do?
They only legitimize a person responsible for the crimes committed by the Russian army in Ukraine.”
Scholz' Ukraine policy: CDU politician Kiesewetter warns the Chancellor
The Polish news
magazine Wprost
then published a cartoon that showed Scholz and Macron at the end of a telephone receiver, apparently speaking shyly into the machine.
Putin is sitting in the other telephone shell - in a tub full of blood.
Defense politician Roderich Kiesewetter (CDU) vehemently supports the thesis that the Eastern European NATO allies are critical of Germany.
The 58-year-old Swabian is Colonel a.
D. the Bundeswehr.
Short definition of "ring exchange"
Germany supplies eastern NATO partners with modern (or modernized) tanks such as the Leopard 2 or the Marder when states such as Poland, the Czech Republic or Greece provide Ukraine with older Soviet-made military equipment - for example the T-72 main battle tank.
He feels "astonished why the promised 15 (
cheetahs, ed
.) that were promised by mid-July were not delivered," explained Kiesewetter in ZDF's "heute journal update" and said: "What I don't understand is that this complicated cheetah weapon system was taken, which the federal government deliberately does not call a tank, although it is heavier than the marten.
There could have been 60 martens and a few dozen Leopard 1s in the Ukraine a long time ago, and given the situation, they should have been.”
Ukraine war: does the ring exchange between Germany and Poland not work?
He criticized the traffic light government for problems with ring exchanges with NATO partners such as Poland or the Czech Republic.
Most recently, Warsaw had accused Berlin of "deception maneuvers" because apparently promised German tanks were not handed over while Ukraine's eastern neighbor had delivered Soviet military equipment.
"It doesn't work because the federal government was too late and too hesitant, and because promises made to Poland, for example, were only hesitantly kept," Kiesewetter said on ZDF: "Specifically: Poland had already delivered around 400 to 600 T -72 announced and asked for an appropriate replacement from Germany.
(...) Two months no answer.
The answer came last week, and then 20 Leopards were supposed to be delivered for the 260 T-72 battle tanks that had been delivered in the meantime.” Kiesewetter rumbled: “The problem is in the Chancellery.”
Heavy criticism for his Ukraine policy: Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD).
© Britta Pedersen/dpa
Ukraine War: Germany supplies Kyiv with Mars II multiple rocket launchers and self-propelled howitzers 2000
In May he had already complained in the ARD program "Anne Will" that Scholz was "playing for time".
Just this Tuesday (July 26), Lambrecht announced that Germany had also delivered three promised Mars II multiple rocket launchers to Ukraine.
In addition, three more self-propelled howitzers 2000 were handed over.
Meanwhile, defense expert Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann from coalition partner FDP Scholz jumped to the side.
"We can't cut the tanks we want out of our ribs," said the chair of the defense committee
Zeit Online
.
The Polish government knows that.
In Warsaw and in New York, where the
Wall Street Journal
is published, the view seems to be different.
(pm)
