Germany has suspended future aid to Ukraine due to financial difficulties. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Newspaper reports.
According to Fuzz ReportAll future requests from the Defense Ministry to help Ukraine will not be approved by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as Germany’s left-wing government seeks cost-cutting measures to deal with its 12 billion euro budget. Shortage.
But the paper said most of the financial and material aid due to go to Ukraine would still go ahead: about 8 billion euros has been earmarked for Kyiv this year, with a further 4 billion euros approved for next year after aid was cut in half for budgetary reasons.
Since then, government sources Fuzz According to a government communication seen by the newspaper, the “new measures” would only be approved if new “funding is secured” for the upcoming federal budget.
Germany is Ukraine’s largest single donor in Europe, so the suspension of further aid payments could pose a major obstacle for Kiev in continuing its war against the much larger and richer Russia.
While the payment freeze is strictly for future budgets, the impact of the payment suspension is already affecting current aid transfers, with the federal government recently rejecting funding for the IRIS-T air defense system proposed by German manufacturer Diehl Defence.
The 8 billion euros allocated this year has already been spent, and the 4 billion euros planned for 2025 has reportedly been exceeded. Ukraine will receive previously agreed supplies, but new orders from Germany will be “hardly” possible until 2028, according to the report.
Scrooge…https://t.co/TnBdM5mBqF pic.twitter.com/KE1TtXsJBy
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The German government is reportedly banking on $300 billion in Russian central bank assets seized by Western allies after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine to help Ukraine in the future.
The G7 nations agreed at a summit in Italy in June to use interest on the assets to fund a $50 billion loan to Kiev, but there is no formal agreement on whether the assets themselves or income from the interest can be sent directly to Ukraine to fund the war effort.
Indeed, the Green Party chairman of the German Bundestag’s budget committee said that at the moment “unfortunately there is nothing concrete about the use of Russian assets.” Andreas Schwarz, deputy budget spokesman for the Social Democrats’ parliamentary bloc, added that it was unclear when Russian assets would be diverted to Ukraine, or “whether it would even be legally possible.”
A spending freeze is likely to exacerbate ongoing problems caused by a lack of support from Germany. Fuzz A shortage of spare parts and ammunition has reportedly meant that some of the German-made guns already supplied to Ukraine can only fire three or four rounds a day, reducing the usefulness of rapid-firing guns such as the Panzerhaubitze 2000.
The paper also reported that due to a shortage of spare parts supplied from Berlin, many of Ukraine’s operational German-made Leopard 1A5 main battle tanks are being “dismantled” to keep other tanks running.
Useless tank…https://t.co/JynmVaQaRq
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 6, 2024
