Germany has frozen its military aid to Ukraine, claiming that a domestic budgetary crisis means it can no longer afford to supply Kyiv with new weapons.
Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, told his defence minister this month that there would be no money available for further military aid, according to a new report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.
Boris Pistorius, the defence minister, had written up a wish list for €4 billion (£3.4 billion) in additional military supplies to Ukraine, but a letter sent to him by the finance ministry made clear that no extra money would be freed up because of the need to cut federal spending.
The freeze has already led to a first critical military order falling through.
After a Russian air strike on a Kyiv children’s hospital in July, Diehl Defence, the arms manufacturer, offered to supply an IRIS-T air defence system to help defend the Ukrainian capital’s airspace.
However, Mr Scholz refused to pay for the missile system, despite the deal being backed by Mr Pistorius.
The aid freeze will not affect previous spending pledges. But with these already over-ordered and current aid commitments set to drop drastically next year, the decision amounts to a freeze on all new defence orders.
“The party is over, the pot is empty,” one government source told the Frankfurter Allgemeine.
The news is raising concerns about the already critical situation on the front line in Ukraine, where Ukrainian soldiers have complained of increasing shortages in munitions and spare parts for the tanks and armoured vehicles supplied by German arms manufacturers.
Munitions are already in such short supply that Ukraine is already reportedly only firing three to four rounds a day with the German-supplied Panzerhaubitze 2000 system.
Political opponents in Berlin accuse the chancellor of an attempt to win votes in three critical state elections in the east of the country this autumn, because east Germans are largely opposed to supporting Ukraine’s war effort.
Ingo Gädechens, an MP for the centre-Right Christian Democrats, said that Mr Scholz had engaged in an “unprecedented spectacle of hypocrisy” by promising Kyiv unconditional support while trying to pose as a “peace chancellor” at home.
The move is said to have caused severe friction inside the German government, with both the defence and foreign ministries opposing the freeze.
Internally, the German government is justifying the decision as being forced on it by a ruling made by the constitutional court last year that Mr Scholz’s budget plans vastly exceeded legal limits.
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