While US Congress fights chaos to find a speaker, Germany, Europe’s reluctant warrior, is in the throes of sea change. It is gearing up to provide armored infantry fighting vehicles and a Patriot air defense battery to harden Ukraine’s fierce response to Russia’s unwarranted invasion.
The government of pacifist post-World War II Germany took the very painful decision to provide heavy offensive weapons to Ukraine on Thursday night, following agreement among all three parties in the country’s governing coalition. The change is dramatic because Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dithering and brutal war methods in Ukraine have shocked Germany, the European Union’s leading economic power, which has always tried to stay on the right side of Russia.
The bloodshed has prompted cautious but determined change in perceptions of German voters about the worth of pacifism written into their constitution. Chancellor Olaf Scholz, noted for handwringing and foot dragging, is stiffening by the week. However, it remains unclear when these complex weapons will be delivered. In particular, the Patriot battery requires very significant preparations and training and may not reach the field for at least 8-10 months. Some of the armored vehicles could start arriving within days.
Berlin will provide German-made Marder armored vehicles similar to the renowned US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. This follows President Joe Biden’s decision to respond positively to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s appeals during his recent visit to Washington. Scholz’s hand was pressured a little by French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision on Wednesday to supply French-built light combat tanks, its swift and highly maneuverable “kill and run” AMX-10 vehicles, to Ukraine.
Suddenly, Ukraine can expect a steady flow of various types of armored fighting vehicles, often considered similar to battle tanks, to carry forward offensive strategies rather than playing defense. This significant change reflects decisions in Washington, Berlin and Paris that Ukraine must be urgently helped to sustain its push back against Russian occupation of its territories. But all will avoid enabling Kyiv to push Putin’s troops all the way back across Ukraine’s borders or to attack Russians in Crimea. The downside is that each weapon uses different ammunition and Zelensky will have to scramble to obtain enough especially if he is planning offensives all along the zones the Russians have captured so far.
Today, January 6, is the Orthodox Christian Christmas Eve (Epiphany for others). Putin has used it to put Zelensky in an embarrassing situation by declaring a 36-hour cease-fire from midday today to midnight tomorrow. The Russian president styles himself as protector of all Eastern Orthodox Christians and wants to give everyone time to observe the holy day. But the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has split away from the Russian Orthodox Church of Moscow and the Greek Orthodox Church also does not recognize Putin’s claims.
Zelensky has rejected Putin’s truce as a trick to slow down advancing Ukrainian troops but may become a target of criticism of Orthodox citizens in the country’s center, south, east and north if Ukrainian guns do not fall silent today. About 80 per cent of Ukrainians are Orthodox but many others in the west are Catholics or Protestants.
Washington is also skeptical about the cease-fire’s intention. President Biden said Putin may be “trying to find some oxygen” with the cease-fire pause. He noted that Putin did not hesitate to bomb “hospitals and nurseries and churches on the 25th and New Year’s.”
The jury is still out on whether Scholz can successfully navigate the sea change in German perceptions of Putin’s violent self-destructive crusade. The invasion of Ukraine began less than three months after Scholz became Germany’s Chancellor atop a coalition that came together with great difficulty. He is a Social Democrat and has long resisted sending heavy weapons to Ukraine or pushing Putin’s back to the wall.