Germany has been one of Ukraine’s main allies in the war against Russia and one of the largest donors of military aid so far. Olaf Scholz’s government is suspending future arms deliveries to Ukraine as part of the spending cuts plan agreed by the three coalition members (social democrats, greens and liberals) for next year’s budget, the daily reported on Saturday. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FACE).
The already approved funds will not be affected and the material will arrive in Ukraine as planned, but all new funding applications are on hold. The moratorium is already in force, according to the newspaper, which cites documents and emails, as well as conversations with sources familiar with the decision.
The information reveals a letter sent by the liberal Finance Minister Christian Lindner to the Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs on 5 August, in which he assures that future funding of military aid to Ukraine will no longer come from the federal budget but from revenues from frozen Russian assets. “Please ensure that the ceilings are respected,” he urges them in the letter.
Germany and the other G7 countries reached a preliminary agreement last June to use the interest generated by the $300 billion (about 272 billion euros) of Russian sovereign assets tied up in Western financial institutions to guarantee a $50 billion (about 45.3 billion euros) loan to Ukraine. At the time, the agreement was widely welcomed amid concerns among Western partners that a possible victory by Donald Trump in the presidential elections in November would jeopardize the flow of American aid.
At the time, no one probably expected that Germany, the country that has contributed the most to the financing of military aid to Kiev according to the Kiel Institute for World Economy, would reduce these budget items. The governments reached a political agreement in June, but the details of the plan are still unclear and could take months to become clear. There are also legal doubts about its implementation.
Lindner’s letter predates recent media reports that a Ukrainian plot was behind the sabotage of the Russian-German Nord Stream gas pipeline in 2022. The decision, in fact, appears to have been taken weeks ago. Berlin already signaled a change of course on aid to Ukraine last month, when Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Social Democrat Economics and Climate Minister Robert Habeck, and Lindner reached a preliminary agreement on Germany’s 2025 budget.
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The draft included plans to cut military aid to kyiv by half, from €8 billion this year to around €4 billion next year. “Funding for Ukraine is secured for the foreseeable future thanks to European instruments and G7 loans,” Minister Lindner said during a press conference between the three partners announcing the budget agreement on 5 July, without giving further details.
The FAZ now reports that military aid will be reduced to less than a tenth of the current amount in the coming years, according to the German government’s plans, which are in response to the need to save in order to comply with the strict debt limit, the so-called debt brake, which the liberal partner in the government is clinging to. In 2026, €3 billion is planned for arms for Ukraine, but in 2027 and 2028 this will be reduced to €500 million annually.
The effects of the freeze are already being felt, the paper reports. The German defence ministry was recently unable to purchase an IRIS-T air defence system. This happened shortly after the attack on a children’s hospital in Kiev in July. The manufacturer, Diehl Defence, had one available after the original customer renounced delivery in favour of Ukraine, but funds had run out and the minister, Boris Pistorius, was unable to acquire it.
The suspension of aid to Ukraine has caused new tensions within the tripartite government, already greatly weakened by the constant crises caused by the lack of agreement between the three partners. The FAZ claims that the chancellor is in favour of blocking the funds, while the Foreign Ministry (Greens), the Economy Ministry (Greens) and the Defence Ministry (Social Democrats) are against it. “End of the act. The pot is empty,” the newspaper quotes a government source as saying, as saying that Berlin has reached a point where it can no longer promise anything more to Ukraine.
Germany has so far contributed to the Ukrainian war effort in two ways: firstly, by providing funds from its federal budget to finance military equipment, and secondly, by providing material from the Bundeswehr, the German military. In total, according to the latest estimate by the Ministry of Defence, Berlin has provided or committed military aid worth around 28 billion euros for the coming years.
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