German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said his ministry had prepared a new military aid package for Ukraine, but denied information from Der Spiegel magazine that Chancellor Olaf Scholz had blocked it.
“There is no blocking“, he told the newspaper Der Tagesspiegel. “In the Defense Ministry, we have prepared a new aid package for Ukraine“, the head of the department noted. He claims that the German government simply has not yet completed the approval process.
“A political decision must now be made on this issue. Once all the issues have been clarified, I expect an appropriate solution“, Pistorius said.
This week, Der Spiegel, citing its sources, reported that Scholz had blocked the allocation of an additional €3 billion military aid package to Kiev, which is being promoted by the heads of the Foreign and Defense Ministry, Annalena Burbock and Pistorius. According to the publication, the ministers would like to provide new aid before the Bundestag elections scheduled for February 23.
The list of weapons, drawn up by experts from the Defense Ministry, includes three more IRIS-T air defense systems, shells, Patriot missiles, 10 howitzers and ammunition. It was supposed to pass through the Bundestag's budget committee as €3 billion in additional costs. Previously, the German government had already used such a loophole to provide aid to Kiev. Berbock and Pistorius intended to signal that Germany would not back down in its efforts to support Ukraine when Donald Trump came to power in the United States.
However, the Federal Chancellor's office has unofficially made it clear that it will not approve an additional package of military aid. They do not want to present the new German government with a fait accompli, and have also indicated that Germany still has enough funds to finance the supply of weapons to Kiev. The 2025 budget provides for about 4 billion euros for these purposes, and Scholz's office also recalled the decision of the Group of Seven to provide Ukraine with a loan using proceeds from frozen Russian assets. As Der Spiegel notes, the Social Democratic Party of Germany believes that Scholz simply does not intend to announce new aid to Kiev in the midst of the election race.
Germany is the second largest supplier of weapons to Ukraine after the United States. To date, it has allocated funds for military support to Kiev and has committed to future spending of around 28 billion euros. In accordance with the agreement on the 2025 budget, Germany must allocate around 4 billion euros for military support to Ukraine. which is half as much as in 2024. However, the budget has not yet been approved by the Bundestag.