As of: February 26, 2024, 5:23 p.m
By: Georg Anastasiadis
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Georg Anastasiadis, editor-in-chief of the Münchner Merkur, comments on Chancellor Olaf Scholz's decision not to supply Ukraine with Taurus missiles.
© Andrea Bienert/Bundeswehr/dpa/Klaus Haag
A comment from Merkur editor-in-chief Georg Anastasiadis.
The Chancellor has made a decision: He will not supply Ukraine with Taurus missiles.
Even more: Olaf Scholz attacks, warns against Germany's involvement in the war, and says he is “irritated” that people are calling for the Taurus.
This is aimed at the Greens, FDP and Union.
At least this should be clear to the Chancellor: Ukraine has its back to the wall.
And with Taurus missiles, Kiev could hit Russia's supply routes in Crimea.
But that's exactly what the Chancellor doesn't want out of concern that Putin might feel provoked.
His mantra has been different since the first days of the war, when 5,000 helmets delivered were too many for some Putin supporters: Scholz doesn't want Ukraine to win, he just wants Russia not to win.
Some people are surprised by the persistence with which Scholz believes he can win the next federal election.
But he has been pursuing a plan for two years: he wants to be re-elected as the “prudent” chancellor who kept the country out of the war.
And it is true that Taurus is tricky.
It would have been better if all Ukraine-supporting countries had ramped up their ammunition production in a timely manner.
What Scholz and his SPD are keeping quiet: By taking up Putin's nuclear threats since the beginning of the war, amplifying them and introducing them into society, they themselves ensured that Russia's hybrid war against Europe, its attempt to make it compliant through threats, worked.
Who is now supposed to stop the land-thirsty dictator, emboldened by this success and the escalation dominance he has been granted, from setting off fire in Moldova or the Baltics?
But it would be unfair to blame Berlin alone for the failed middle course of leaving Ukraine alive, but only as a cripple.
The entire West spoke too full and then failed to take action.
Tens of thousands of brave defenders who, trusting in the strength of democracies, opposed Putin's campaign against freedom, gave their lives for it.
George Anastasiadis