As the war continues to ravage Ukraine, Berlin is attempting to reinvent its relations with Kyiv.
On March 30, Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that “overall” his country is ready to give security guarantees to Ukraine.
The next day, Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock reiterated this stance, saying that Ukraine can rely on Germany’s security guarantees and acknowledging how the country is fighting for the freedom of its country, its people and Europe. The same day, Berlin also agreed to send arms to Kyiv worth 300 million euros, including drones, mortars, machine guns and armored SUVs.
On the surface, such a change of heart by a country that had hitherto refused to send weapons to Ukraine appears to be promising. However, this remains set against the backdrop of Germany’s continuous and deliberate failure to be on the right side of history, begging the question: What kind of security guarantees can Germany really provide to Ukraine?
For years, Berlin’s cozy relations with Moscow and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin personally defined its foreign policy. This has often been at the expense of geopolitical concerns and the interests of other European states.
Both Gerhard Schroeder and Angela Merkel, former German Chancellors, tried to establish Germany’s economic domination in the EU and the eurozone by fostering strong ties with Putin, perhaps by appealing to its post-World War II moral responsibility as a reason for doing so.
Less clear is why Russia has been the sole beneficiary of Germany’s inherent feeling of guilt, while Ukraine and Belarus – which both suffered huge losses during the Nazi invasion – were left largely sidelined.
German industry’s demand for cheap Russian gas looks to be a key driver.
Russia’s annexation of Crimea, combined with its military support of the enclave quasi-republics in eastern Ukraine and the shooting down of flight MH-17 in 2014 did not convince Putin’s useful idiots to review their stance.
After hesitantly introducing some sanctions, Merkel’s grand coalition government continued to pursue the policy of appeasement, advocating the completion of Putin’s pet project, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, while providing on-paper support for Kyiv’s EU and NATO membership ambitions
In reality, it continues to consistently block Ukraine’s accession to the EU and (especially) NATO.
In 2008, Merkel together with then President of France Nicolas Sarkozy, obstructed U.S. plans to grant Ukraine and Georgia a Membership Action Plan at the Bucharest Summit, which resulted in a vague promise of eventually granting membership to both. Russia invaded Georgia shortly after.
A party to the now dead Normandy Format, Germany also advocated the Minsk Agreements, which envisioned the enclave republics’ integration into Ukraine’s political scene – a move that would have effectively paralyzed Kyiv’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations and fulfilling Moscow’s plan.
While the 2021 general elections put an end to Merkel’s era of being heavily focused on domestic interests and policy, it did not mark any tangible shifts in Berlin’s foreign policy.
Until recently, the German government wanted to cooperate with Moscow, was prepared to launch Nord Stream 2, and refused to arm Ukraine.
In response to the 2022 invasion, Berlin finally changed its policy, agreeing to send weapons to Ukraine instead of protective helmets and put the controversial pipeline on indefinite hold.
Although it turned out that the promised missiles from the Eastern Germany era were rusty and under-equipped, the biggest concern relating to the reality of Germany’s preparedness to help Ukraine can be found in the accounts of Ukraine’s Envoy to Germany Andriy Melnyk.
According to him, on Feb. 24, the day Russia launched a full-scale war, German Minister of Finances Christian Lindner ridiculed the idea of sending weapons to Ukraine and was preparing to cooperate with a government it expected to be installed by Russia in Ukraine.
One month later, the Ambassador also revealed that the German government had been ignoring correspondence relating to weapons for three consecutive weeks.
These circumstances combined, cast serious doubt on Germany’s promises to provide Ukraine with meaningful security guarantees against the only enemy it has – Russia.
Putinverstehers are still omnipresent in Germany, which remains unwilling to provide jet fighters and has limited defense capacity. The chief of Germany’s land army, Alfons Mais, recently declared that “the options we can offer to politicians to support (NATO) are extremely limited”, which divulged Berlin’s years-long neglect of footing its military bill.
While Scholz has pledged a special budget of 100 billion euros for the military, annual spending of more than two percent of output on defense, and the possible purchase of the Israeli Arrow 3 anti-missile system, it is also clear that these endeavors will require substantial time to become operational.
It is likewise obvious that in the coming months and years, Germany will be busy beefing up its defense capacity before providing any potential aid to Ukraine.
Berlin is yet to specify what guarantees it has in mind, and there is one thing that is certain: Kyiv does not need Germany’s rusty missiles after winning the war for “Europe’s freedom” at the expense of its people.
Drones and SUVs, unless armored with nuclear missiles, will not do either.
Germany and Ukraine will certainly benefit from renewing relations in just about every political area, and it is encouraging to see that Berlin has rejected the Kremlin’s rubles-for-gas demand, as well as attempting to become independent of Russian fossil fuels and gradually accepting the idea of Ukraine joining the EU.
But if Berlin is trying to come up with window dressing-like security guarantees as an indulgence for its political sins, then it might as well give up on the idea and advocate the only true security guarantee that Ukraine needs, deserves, and has been promised for a long time – NATO membership.
