Olaf Scholz is becoming Putin’s most valuable ally
If you think that Boris Johnson’s parties in Downing Street constitute a serious matter of state, you might want to take a look at what is happening in Germany right now. Olaf Scholz has been caught red-handed misrepresenting facts about weapons deliveries to Ukraine. Behind the scenes, he is busy frustrating efforts to help the country, while pretending to be outraged about Vladimir Putin’s aggression.
Double games work until they don’t. His policies are now being exposed by the media. Scholz said on Tuesday that Germany and Ukraine went through a list of weapons deliveries, and that Germany planned to pay for them. Ukraine denied this. It said that there were no weapons on the list that it needed right now. Bild managed to get hold of the list, and was shocked to find that the original list of 48 pages had been shrunk in half. The German defence ministries, on orders from Scholz, had removed all the heavy weapons.
Ukraine have been asking for rocket launchers, as well as anti-ship and anti-tank missiles. They also asked for transport tanks. Scholz’s office denied all of these requests.
Outwardly, however, Scholz is pretending to support Ukraine. He says in his defence that other countries are doing exactly the same, which is another lie. The US, the UK, Australia and the Netherlands are all delivering heavy weapons.
Scholz is clearly playing a double game. He and his party to this day remain heavily invested in the bilateral relationship with Russia, which is arguably the most important strategic relationship in post-war Europe. It looks like the SPD has been betting on a Ukrainian capitulation following a short war. The SPD was shocked by Putin’s invasion, but the party is clearly not ready to break with him.
While Scholz is acting behind the scenes against Ukraine, he is pretending to be a loyal member of the western alliance. His double game is now turning into a crisis within the coalition. Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck have been trying to keep the lid on this, cautiously supporting Scholz’s position in contrast to their own previous loud support for weapons deliveries.
