Not for the first time, Ukraine is having problems with support from Berlin. It also has a France, U.S. and even a U.K. problem. Taken together, they go a long way to explaining why President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made the high-risk gamble of sending troops to fight in Russia, at a time when he had barely enough to hold the line at home.
It’s easy to pick on Germany, the nation that at first offered Ukraine just helmets to help defend itself against Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The “Zeitenwende” that Chancellor Olaf Scholz then boldly announced to transform German energy and security policies changed all that. But with this week’s Frankfurter Allgemeine report that the finance ministry plans to halve the budget for Ukraine aid next year and slash it further thereafter, Scholz’s “turning point” is looking a little more like a swerve.
Coming just after Berlin made public its issuance of an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian national accused of carrying out the September 2022 sabotage of the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, you might also think the reported cuts are payback. They aren’t, and not because the government says no decisions on cuts have yet been made. The answer’s much simpler: a dysfunctional coalition government and a finance minister wedded to absurdly restrictive budget rules.