Germany freezes Ukraine military aid as budget crisis hits at home

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Germany freezes Ukraine military aid as budget crisis hits at home

Germany has frozen

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, claiming that a

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means it can no longer afford to supply Kyiv with new weapons.

Olaf Scholz, the ******* chancellor, told his defence minister this month that there would be no money available for further military aid, according to a new report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.

Boris Pistorius, the defence minister, had written up a wish list for €4 billion (£3.4 billion)  in

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, but a letter sent to him by the finance ministry made clear that no extra money would be freed up because of the need to cut federal spending.

The freeze has already led to a first critical military order falling through.

After a Russian air strike on a

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in July, Diehl Defence, the arms manufacturer, offered to supply an IRIS-T air defence system to help defend the Ukrainian capital’s airspace.

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The Iris-T air defence system, right, that a ******* arms firm hoped to supply for Kiev, on display at this year’s Berlin Air Show – Sean Gallup/Getty Images

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Olaf Scholz, centre, speaks with Gen Carsten Breuer in front of an Iris-T air defence system at the Berlin Air Show – Sean Gallup/Getty Images

However, Mr Scholz refused to pay for the missile system, despite the deal being backed by Mr Pistorius.

The aid freeze will not affect previous spending pledges. But with these already over-ordered and current aid commitments set to drop drastically next year, the decision amounts to a freeze on all new defence orders.

“The party is over, the **** is empty,” one government source told the Frankfurter Allgemeine.

The news is raising concerns about the

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in Ukraine, where Ukrainian soldiers have complained of increasing shortages in munitions and spare parts for the tanks and armoured vehicles supplied by ******* arms manufacturers.

Munitions are already in such short supply that Ukraine is already reportedly only ******* three to four rounds a day with the *******-supplied Panzerhaubitze 2000 system.

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Ukrainian troops are already reporting shortages of ammunition for *******-supplied tanks such as this Leopard 2A5 in action in the Donetsk region – Anatoli Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images

Political opponents in Berlin accuse the chancellor of an attempt to win votes in three critical state elections in the east of the country this autumn, because east Germans are largely opposed to supporting Ukraine’s war effort.

Ingo Gädechens, an MP for the centre-Right ********** Democrats, said that Mr Scholz had engaged in an “unprecedented spectacle of hypocrisy” by promising Kyiv unconditional support while trying to pose as a “peace chancellor” at home.

The move is said to have caused severe friction inside the ******* government, with both the defence and foreign ministries opposing the freeze.

Internally, the ******* government is justifying the decision as being forced on it by a ruling made by the constitutional court last year that Mr Scholz’s budget plans vastly exceeded legal limits.

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#Germany #freezes #Ukraine #military #aid #budget #crisis #hits #home

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