Chancellor Olaf Scholz has described Russia’s war in Ukraine as a costly strategic failure for president Vladimir Putin, driven by his “mania for power”.
Ahead of a European Council meeting in Brussels, Mr Scholz told the Bundestag in Berlin that the “real story” of 2022 was not the Russian invasion of its neighbour - but just how far it has gone wrong.
“Putin was wrong: about the courage of the Ukrainians, about Europe, about us and the nature of our democracies,” he said, adding that Moscow had not achieved “a single goal” of its war.
The German leader said that Moscow’s imperial ambitions had also underestimated European solidarity with Ukraine, in particular its ability to source, at short notice, alternatives to Russian energy.
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In a nod to Hungary, which this week dropped objections to aid for Kyiv, Mr Scholz added that efforts to “undermine the values of the EU to which every member state has committed itself, by blocking its foreign and security policies, will fail”.
Underlying Russia’s miscalculation was the assumption that Ukraine, facing a much larger military force, would capitulate after a short time.
Ukraine’s ex-ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk claimed this view was shared by several leading German politicians, including finance minister Christian Lindner.
The ambassador said that, in a conversation on February 24th, Mr Lindner told him: “You’ve only got a few hours.” A spokesman for the finance minister has disputed this, but conceded it was an “open, frank” conversation.
After a year in office, Mr Scholz said the war had catalysed overdue reforms in Germany, boosting its military spending and energy diversity.
On Saturday, the first ship carrying liquid natural gas (LNG) will dock at a new floating terminal, constructed in the German port of Wilhelmshaven in six months.
With ongoing talks at EU level about a common gas price cap, Mr Scholz said he was optimistic at reaching a “pragmatic” understanding. However he restated German wariness not to “intervene in prices in such a way that too little gas is then delivered to Europe”.
On Tuesday, Germany’s federal economics minister Robert Habeck said agreement was still elusive on an EU-wide gas price cap.
A lively Bundestag debate on Wednesday focused on Germany’s military deliveries to Ukraine, including armed personnel carriers, rocket launchers, an air defence system as well as arms. So far Berlin has declined to supply battle tanks, saying no Nato partners have done so, either.
Opposition leader Friedrich Merz, chairman of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) said German hesitancy on weapons deliveries was prolonging the war.
“The more we help, the faster this war will be over,” said Mr Merz. Turning to Mr Scholz, he said it was “mainly up to you personally that Ukraine doesn’t get this aid”.
As part of a €100 billion investment in Germany’s armed forces, announced after the Russian invasion, the Bundestag defence committee on Wednesday backed a €10 billion deal for 35 US F-35 military planes, 120,000 machine guns and 20,000 encrypted walkie-talkies.
