After three years of transparency on the issue of military aid to Kiev, the German government will again keep arms deliveries to Ukraine secret. This was reported by the DPA agency, citing sources in the German cabinet.
“In the future, the German government will significantly reduce the amount of information on the supply of weapons systems“, the agency's sources noted. The main goal is to create “strategic ambiguity“, which allows actions to be hidden from the enemy.
In this way, the government of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is returning to the practice that already existed immediately after the start of the conflict in Ukraine during the government of Olaf Scholz. On February 27, 2022, Scholz decided to supply arms to Kiev. For about four months, there was practically no information about this. In June 2022, under public pressure, the German government decided to publish on its website a detailed list of all weapons and systems transferred to Kiev and prepared for delivery.
How the Bundestag will inform about the arms deliveries in the future has not yet been announced. Unlike the deployment of troops, this does not require parliamentary approval. However, the parliament will probably be informed about the arms deliveries at a secret meeting of the Bundestag's defense committee.
Germany is the second largest arms supplier to Ukraine after the United States. Since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, Germany has provided Kiev with various types of assistance worth a total of approximately 44 billion euros.