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Volodymyr Selenskyj and Olaf Scholz in Berlin in February: “We have to leave the comfort zone and finally act as a war requires.”
Photo: Christian Spicker / IMAGO
The Russian attack on Ukraine marks a historical turning point.
It didn't come out of the blue.
There have been enough warning signs, at least since the Russian military intervention in Georgia in 2008. German politicians have deliberately ignored them.
The security policy, financial and energy policy consequences were too uncomfortable.
People preferred to stick to a worldview in which there were no longer any threatening opponents and no conflicts that could not be pacified with diplomacy and money.
When Olaf Scholz came to the lectern in the Bundestag on February 27, 2022, a new tone, a new seriousness, a new determination wafted through the room.
However, what followed the Chancellor's speech did not live up to its promise.
The turning point stopped halfway.
Putin smells dawn, Ukraine is running out of ammunition.
After all, new signals are coming from the Chancellery.
While the carnival crowd was celebrating Shrove Monday, Olaf Scholz was photographed in front of an artillery shell at the laying of the foundation stone for a new ammunition factory.
The appeals to other European states to do more for Ukraine are also unmistakable.
There is a sense of concern that Western support could erode so much that Ukraine collapses.
Scholz rightly warns of the fatal consequences of a Ukrainian defeat.
But the point is that our policies have contributed to Ukraine being in such a critical situation today.
With each passing day it becomes clearer that Ukraine will either win or lose.
The Chancellor's line aims to support Ukraine to such an extent that it can somewhat withstand Russian aggression.
This is the barely disguised meaning of the mantra “Ukraine must not lose, Russia must not win.” In the end, Kiev and Moscow must realize that they cannot win the war.
Then the hour comes for negotiations in which the status of Crimea and the other Russian-occupied territories is just as much at stake as Ukraine's NATO membership.
This middle ground policy has failed.
It prevented Ukraine from capitalizing on the momentum of autumn 2022 and enabled Russia to go back on the offensive.
It failed to set the course for a continuous supply of weapons and ammunition for Ukraine in a timely manner.
And it continues to assume a misjudgment of the Putin regime's motives and goals in the hope of being able to pacify the Kremlin through concessions.
“We paralyze ourselves by worrying about Putin’s “red lines””
With every passing day it becomes clearer that Ukraine will either win or lose the war.
And it will win if the West throws its economic and military weight into the balance.
If necessary, Europe must shoulder this task alone.
Given the uncertainty about future American policy, a European “coalition of the willing” including Great Britain is needed all the more urgently.
Instead of making our politics dependent on Washington, we should form a European center of gravity with Paris and Warsaw.
The Ukrainian withdrawal from Avdiivka has shown, as if in a magnifying glass, what it lacks for a successful defense: artillery ammunition, sufficient anti-aircraft defense, fighter aircraft to support the ground troops and enough long-range guided missiles to protect bases, airports, ammunition depots and transport routes of the Russian army behind the to destroy the front.
The “Taurus” example shows, as if under a magnifying glass, the self-chaining of our politics.
The arguments that are put forward in public are mere mirror arguments.
No weapon system alone is decisive for war.
But cruise missiles with long range and penetration are a powerful weapon.
Ukraine could use it to destroy the Kerch Bridge, through which much of Russia's supplies flow into southern Ukraine, and it could attack strategic targets far behind the front.
The Chancellery considers this to be too risky.
We paralyze ourselves by worrying about Putin's "red lines" instead of confronting him with maximum strength.
The German crimes in Ukraine during the Second World War have not been forgotten
Compared to the politics and mentality of the Merkel years, the federal government has come a long way.
But relative to the demands of war, we are still in
too little, too late
mode .
Pointing fingers at others doesn't help either.
Germany is the second largest economy in the Western alliance;
In relation to our economic strength, we are only in the middle of the European range when it comes to supporting Ukraine.
There are good reasons to do more than others.
“German politics only woke up when the Russian tanks were just outside Kiev.”
We have a lot to make up for this troubled nation.
The German crimes in Ukraine during the Second World War have not been forgotten.
But our policy in the period before February 2022 was also not a glory, from the Nord Stream pipelines to the stubborn refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons and to give it a binding EU and NATO perspective.
We simply left Ukraine out in the cold.
German politics only woke up when the Russian tanks were just outside Kiev.
And even then, we always kept arms aid to Ukraine below the threshold that Putin could possibly interpret as a declaration of war.
This threshold has gradually shifted.
But it was always about “not provoking Putin.”
»Our security is defended on the Dnieper.
Saying this does not mean sending German troops to the front."
The sole ruler in the Kremlin has long since declared war on NATO.
For him, the war against Ukraine is also a war against the “collective West.” Our restraint has not prevented him from bombing Ukrainian cities and destroying the infrastructure.
Instead of relying on deterrence, our fear of escalation gives Putin free rein to escalate the war at will.
Even if the Chancellor occasionally speaks of “Russian neo-imperialism,” our politics is still characterized by repression.
The hope that Putin will “come to his senses” is based on sand.
It fails to recognize his will to destroy Ukraine as an independent nation.
And it doesn't take seriously that the Kremlin's motives extend far beyond Ukraine.
Putin is not just interested in collecting "Russian soil." He wants to overturn the liberal international order, which he equates with the hegemony of the West.
His strategic goal remains the redivision of Europe with Russia as the dominant power and the gutting of the transatlantic alliance.
If Putin gets his way in Ukraine, he will also come closer to these goals.
It follows from this: This is our war too, whether we want it or not.
Our security is defended on the Dnieper.
Saying this does not mean sending German troops to the front.
But it means that we have to leave the comfort zone and finally act as a war requires: ramping up arms production, tapping our reserves of weapons and ammunition for the benefit of Ukraine, cutting off economic relations with Russia, confiscating the Russian state bank's assets with Western ones Financial institutions to cover the costs of war and reconstruction.
The debt brake cannot be taboo when it comes to financing additional war-related spending.
No state has ever paid for a war using current tax revenue.
The recently agreed security partnership with Ukraine is just a placebo if we don't do everything we can
now
to repel the Russian attack.
It is definitely not a substitute for future NATO membership.
There is no reliable security for Ukraine outside the transatlantic alliance.
Conversely, without Ukraine as a cornerstone, there is no stability on NATO's southeastern flank.
What follows from this?
We must all do everything we can to enable Ukraine to win the war and liberate the occupied territories.
We should not fear regime change in Moscow, but encourage it.
Non-recognition of the fake presidential elections in March would be a clear signal that Putin can no longer be a partner to the West.
We must close the loopholes in the sanctions regime and make the frozen assets of the Russian Central Bank available to Ukraine.
Finally, we should leave no doubt that the Russian leadership must answer for the war of aggression and continued war crimes in Ukraine.
Ukraine is the litmus test for the will of liberal democracies to assert themselves.
If we fail, dark times will dawn, and not just for Ukraine.