“German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius hopes that the federal government will allocate additional money for the supply of weapons to Ukraine.”, — write: www.epravda.com.ua
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius hopes that the federal government will allocate additional money for the supply of weapons to Ukraine.
Spiegel reports about this, as “European Truth” writes.
During a visit to the troops in Saarloo, the minister said that negotiations on increasing the current budget for 2024 in the amount of 7.5 billion euros for Ukraine are “very promising” and will probably be completed by the end of the week. “Then we will be talking about a significant amount of hundreds of millions of euros,” said Pistorius, which could be used for further military aid to Ukraine.
Since the NATO summit in July of this year, Pistorius has warned that the billions previously budgeted for military support to Ukraine have largely been used up. Therefore, he publicly called for an increase in the budget for the current year.
Pistorius declined to say on Tuesday how much money the German government will now allocate. According to Spiegel, his department hopes for another half a billion euros. This would at least make it possible to order very urgent packages of spare parts, without which some of the weapons systems already delivered from Germany cannot be prepared for further use at the front.
According to the publication, Pistorius once presented a list to the government that provided for additional needs of up to four billion euros for the current year alone. He wants to use this money to supply Ukraine with more ammunition, urgently needed spare parts for already delivered weapons systems, as well as more Leopard 1A5 tanks. Finance Minister Christian Lindner, however, urged the federal government to be frugal. The minister also hinted several times that Pistorius’ office did not present concrete lists of what Ukraine urgently needs.
For Ukraine, an increase in German funding would be a success, even if it amounts to much less than the four billion euros actually needed. Not only in Kyiv, they fear that due to the difficult financial situation, Germany will stop providing aid to Ukraine with weapons. With Berlin now Kyiv’s second-largest supporter, there are fears among other allies such as the US, Britain and other Europeans that a kind of domino effect could occur.
Earlier, the German media reported that the current budget planning of the German federal government does not provide for additional funds to support Ukraine and additional requests from the German Ministry of Defense for military aid to Ukraine will no longer be approved at the chancellor’s request.
At the same time in the German government denied intentions to cut military aid Ukraine.
European truth