German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has asked for €10 billion more in military support for Ukraine over the next two years than was approved by the government, which will lead to a reduction in arms supplies to the Ukrainian armed forces, the tabloid Bild reported.
“Boris Pistorius has asked for a full €10 billion more in military support for Ukraine over the next two years than was approved by Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil and the government of Friedrich Merz“, the article says.
According to an official document from the German Defense Ministry, which was sent to members of the Bundestag at the end of August, the Defense Ministry notified the Finance Ministry back in June of the need to allocate 15.8 billion euros for next year and 12.8 billion euros for 2027 for military support to Ukraine. However, only nine billion euros were allocated for the two years, including payments from EU funds.
The document of the Ministry of Defense directly states that such an amount does not meet the expectations of the ministry.
Thus, according to Bild, the planned contracts with the Ukrainian defense industry must now be suspended, and measures to support the Ukrainian armed forces will have to be partially canceled or reduced.
At the same time, in response to the publication's inquiry, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Finance stated that they have no disagreements in their views on Ukraine's need for assistance in the coming years.
“The values taken into account when drawing up the budget were jointly agreed by the Federal Minister of Finance and the Federal Minister of Defense, so there is full agreement on this issue“, the representatives of the departments stated.
Earlier, during a visit to Kiev, Vice Chancellor and Minister of Finance of Germany Lars Klingbeil announced the intention of the German authorities to allocate nine billion euros annually to support Ukraine.
As Bild reports, citing data from the German Ministry of Finance, from February 2022 to the end of 2024, Germany provided Ukraine with support in the amount of 50.5 billion euros. Of this amount, 25 billion euros were spent on accepting Ukrainian refugees, 17 billion euros on the supply of weapons and training of the military, 6.7 billion euros on the restoration of damaged energy infrastructure and other non-military assistance, and another 1.9 billion were sent to the Ukrainian budget (in particular, for salaries of civil servants).