The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

The situation in the morning - battle tanks are supposed to force Putin to the negotiating table

2023-01-26T04:50:58.830Z


How Olaf Scholz justified the Leopard delivery - and what the battle tanks mean for Ukraine. Why nobody wants to deliver fighter jets. And: the Secretary of Defense with the troops. This is the situation on Thursday.


today it's about the delivery of battle tanks announced by Olaf Scholz and their importance for Ukraine.

We're looking at whether tanks will be followed by fighter jets.

And: Defense Minister Pistorius visits the troops.

The tanks alone are not a turning point

The Chancellor announced the expected delivery of the Leopard 2 tanks in the Bundestag, explained his initially hesitant course and upheld joint action with the USA as a principle.

As my colleague Veit Medick analyses , it is a pattern that one

knows from

Olaf Scholz :

first procrastinate for a long time, then suddenly act

.

Following the current debate, one could easily fall into the belief that the delivery of main battle tanks that has now been decided on means a kind of military turning point.

But as important as the tanks are in supporting Ukraine against a Russian spring offensive, and as helpful as they can be in recapturing Ukrainian territory, they do not represent an entirely new quality of Western support for Ukraine.

There's no reason why they mean a bigger leap than, say, the American Himars missile launchers, which Ukraine has been fighting with for the past year.

Germany is

no more legally a party to the war

by supplying battle tanks than by supplying armored personnel carriers, self-propelled howitzers or Bundeswehr helmets.

That is clear under international law – I would like to refer again to the article by my colleague Dietmar Hipp from eight months ago.

On the other hand, Russia has called the war against Ukraine a war against NATO almost from the start and has been claiming for the past year that the West is a war party – and the leopards aren't going to change that either.

But what the main battle tanks from the West stand for: They demonstratively show

the West's will to provide long-term military support to Ukraine

and to help it recapture occupied territories

.

This does not mean Crimea in the first place, but above all the territory in the south towards the Sea of ​​Azov and in the north-east towards Donbass.

The tanks are therefore also an important signal to Putin: support for Ukraine is not waning, it is designed for the long term.

They do not want to allow a military victory for Russia;

a Russian defeat is a possibility.

In the long term, this signal can have a peace-making effect: it is the most effective means that the West has at all to force Russia to the negotiating table in the long term.

  • Upgrade or game changer?

    With the delivery of heavy battle tanks, the West is sending a clear signal as an ally of Ukraine. 

Nobody wants to deliver fighter jets

Will the now agreed support for Ukraine be sufficient militarily?

In Russia there is already talk of another wave of mobilization with hundreds of thousands more soldiers.

Although these are mostly poorly trained and equipped, many from the last round of conscription have already fallen.

But that doesn't seem to bother the Kremlin much: the sheer number of soldiers can already have an effect.

Therefore, a possible next step is already being discussed, which Chancellor Scholz rhetorically brushed aside on Wednesday:

the question of whether fighter jets might also have to be made available to Ukraine.

The question first came up last spring.

It cannot be ruled out that it will be debated more seriously at some point.

The calls from Ukraine for this have become louder in recent days.

At the moment, however, the delivery of fighter jets is

categorically ruled out

both in the USA and in Germany .

The White House has previously refused to let Ukraine have American F-16s out of concern that they could be used to attack Russian territory.

Scholz once again made it clear in the Bundestag on Wednesday that "it's not about fighter planes".

And unlike in the tank debate, no one has so far contradicted the chancellor from the traffic light coalition on this issue.

  • New demand from Kyiv: tank issue resolved, fighter jet debate begins 

You can find more news and background information on the war in Ukraine here:

  • The latest developments:

    Following the West's commitment to tanks, the Ukrainian President praised a "historic achievement".

    Russia is apparently increasing military pressure in Donetsk - and is railing against a UNESCO decision.

    The overview.

  • The Wumms principle:

    a long silence, then the unexpected serve – Olaf Scholz surprised again with the Leopard decision.

    The Chancellor has remained true to his strategy - but it also shows how risky it is. 

  • "It's a very dangerous slide":

    will it stay with Leopard tanks - and what triggers the decision in Putin's mind?

    The SPD politician Ralf Stegner, the left leader Janine Wissler and the CDU politician Thorsten Frei discuss this in SPIEGEL's "Top Talks".

  • "The Third World War is just around the corner":

    The federal government is handing over at least 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and also allowing other countries to deliver them to the war zone.

    Not everyone in Germany likes that.

The Secretary of Defense visits the troops

The turning point that Olaf Scholz proclaimed a year ago should actually also mean a strengthening of the Bundeswehr.

So far, however, the troops have seen almost nothing of the 100 billion euro special fund that was decided upon at his request - instead, many of their functional weapons are now in use in Ukraine.

The new Defense Minister ,

Boris Pistorius

, took office at a critical time.

While some are already saying that the Bundeswehr needs more than two to three times as many resources to become operational,

the mood among the soldiers is at an all-time low

(as my colleagues recently researched in this SPIEGEL cover story).

Today Pistorius is expected to make his

inaugural visit to the Bundeswehr

at the Altengrabow military training area.

It is said that he wants to gain an insight into the shooting and combat training there and hold talks with the soldiers.

It's also an opportunity for him to feel the mood at grassroots level.

  • A turning point in the Bundeswehr: Heerjemine – how bad the troops really are 

Here's the current quiz of the day

The starting question today: Who elects the Federal President?

Winner of the day...

... is the Apple group.

All major Silicon Valley companies from Google to Amazon to Microsoft are announcing mass layoffs this year, and around 200,000 people have already lost their jobs in the American tech industry.

But Apple has been spared.

Why is that?

This is probably due to the fact that Apple CEO Tim Cook has a reliable source of money with the iPhone and

was rather conservative on many issues

: Unlike the competition, employees were never offered free meals, and they were reluctant to hire staff and invest in new ones projects.

On the other hand, the Facebook group Meta has invested enormous sums in the digital reality »Metaverse«, the benefit of which has remained unclear.

Many companies have hired employees in a frenzy in recent years: Facebook doubled the number of employees within three years, Microsoft increased them by half - Apple, on the other hand, by only 20 percent.

The party in Silicon Valley is over now.

Only not at Apple: They never celebrated one there.

The latest news from the night

  • Municipal utilities expect gas and electricity prices to double permanently:

    The municipal energy suppliers warn of “false hopes”: The crisis is no longer so dramatic.

    Nevertheless, consumers would have to continue to adjust to high gas and electricity tariffs.

  • Tesla reports record profits - and sets ambitious goals:

    Last year Tesla earned more than ever before in a fiscal year - despite high inflation, economic concerns and supply chain problems.

    In 2023, Elon Musk's group even wants to deliver 1.8 million electric cars.

  • One dead and several injured in machete attacks in Spanish churches:

    In the Spanish city of Algeciras, a man apparently attacked churchmen and believers with a machete.

    There was one dead and four injured.

    Authorities are investigating a terrorist motive.

The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today

  • Biden's billion-dollar factory experiment:

    The US President has big plans: He wants to bring industry back to America - and the votes of the working class to the Democrats.

    Can the expensive plan work? 

  • The girl from Auschwitz:

    Tova Friedman survived the gas chamber as a child.

    Now she's trying to protect younger generations from new hate - relying on her 17-year-old grandson and TikTok videos. 

  • This is how you recognize fake shops: It

    is annoying and expensive to be taken in by fraudulent providers on the Internet.

    This can be avoided with curiosity and helpful tools.

    What is still possible in the event of damage. 

  • Anger and tenderness:

    The artist Nan Goldin portrays drug addicts, the naked, the suffering - and documents her own addiction.

    How she became the most influential activist in the art scene. 

I wish you a good start into the day.

Yours sincerely, Mathieu von Rohr, head of the SPIEGEL international department

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2023-01-26

You may like

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-27T16:45:54.081Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.