Germany Makes Historic Shift on Weapons to Ship Ukraine Arms
(Bloomberg) -- Germany upended years of policy and agreed to supply Kyiv with weapons and consider ways to shut out Russia from the SWIFT financial messaging system, signaling the depth of outrage in Berlin at President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, facing his first international crisis as Germany's leader, signed off on providing Ukraine with 500 Stinger surface-to-air missiles and 1,000 anti-tank weapons from German stockpiles. His decision sets aside traditional German restraint on arms exports to war zones, a policy rooted in the country's legacy of World War II aggression.
“Russia's invasion of Ukraine marks a turning point,” Scholz said in a statement announcing the decision. “It threatens our entire postwar order. In this situation, it is our duty to do our best to help Ukraine defend itself against Vladimir Putin's invading army.”
Scholz's move, coupled with an escalation of rhetoric against Putin, came shortly after the government said it's supplying 400 German-made rocket propelled grenades to Ukraine via the Netherlands, along with 14 armored personnel carriers, 10,000 tons of fuel via Poland and nine howitzers from the former East German army positioned in Estonia.
Amid intense trans-Atlantic diplomacy to marshal a united U.S.-European response ahead of Russia's invasion, Germany is shifting ground after facing derision for initially declining to send lethal military aid to Ukraine and offering 5,000 helmets instead.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, who held talks with Scholz in Berlin earlier Saturday, praised Germany's new stance.
“You can't win a war with helmets alone,” he said at a news conference after returning to Vilnius. “It's a breakthrough for this key European state and that's something we need to appreciate.”
New Government
Scholz, a Social Democrat who took office in December, aligned with his Green coalition partners, who hold the foreign ministry in Berlin.
“After the shameless attack by Russia, Ukraine must be able to defend itself,” Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said in a separate statement.
Germany's reluctance earlier in the week to expel Russia from SWIFT, a system used for trillions of dollars worth of transactions between thousands of banks around the world, also was crumbling on Saturday. U.S. President Joe Biden singled out European resistance to such a move on Thursday.
Germany “is working flat out on how to limit the collateral damage of decoupling from SWIFT in such a way that it affects the right people,” Baerbock and Habeck said. “What we need is a targeted and functional restriction of SWIFT.”
Nauseda said he and Scholz discussed cutting Russia off from SWIFT.
“Germany is making preparations on how to compensate for secondary effects of this decision,” the Lithuanian leader said.
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.
-
Talking Points This Week: Tech Nerves, FII Buying, And A Faraway Banking Shock
The global markets are not shining this Diwali. The exception in the large markets is, India.
-
Midterm Rally Lasted A Day. The Hard Reality Of A Divided US May Last Two Years | Opinion
Between a contested AI boom, a debt ceiling that arrives in 2027 and a president with every incentive to act alone, the next two years may prove more volatile than the first day's rally suggests.
-
Blue Wave Will Derail the AI Trade but Won't Dismantle the AI Era | Unhedged Position
The Democrats' sweep of the US Congress will see politics collide with economic forces both over the long and short term.
-
It's Time To Take The GST Council's Bet On Trust Global
Payment records can prove India's services exports, and clear, proportionate rules can bring foreign digital sellers into the tax net.
-
Opinion | India at 38: From Innovation Overperformer to Innovation Powerhouse
India now has 453 VC-backed deep science startups, 18 of them late-stage, after 117 percent growth since 2020. Laurus Labs, at USD 9.3 billion, is the most valuable deep science company in any middle-income economy outside China.
-
Navigating Energy Crossroads: S Jaishankar's Call For Diversified Supply Chains At G20 Ministerial Meeting
As geopolitical fault lines continue to test maritime trade routes and commodity flows, Jaishankar's message remains pertinent: true economic resilience requires open markets, protected transit lines, and a genuine commitment to multilateral cooperation rather than coercion.
-
Indians Are Travelling, But Not Every Journey Is A Holiday | The Week In Whys
Pilgrims, patients and working women are the real travellers, and the system hasn't quite caught up with them.
-
Getting To Work Costs Women More | The Reason Why
It is not just about women paying more than men. It is about women paying much more in cities than in villages.
-
AI Bias In Investing Cannot Be Eliminated, But It Can Be Governed
Framing is a particularly important example as identical financial information presented in terms of gains rather than losses can lead an LLM to reach a different assessment.
