
“Yes, I give this guarantee,” Scholz said in response to a question in the Bundestag parliament on Wednesday, echoing comments he had made before. “That’s what I stand for as chancellor.”
NATO allies are planning to launch a new project in support of Kiev, dubbed “NATO Mission Ukraine“, at their next summit in Washington. The German government is reportedly concerned that designating the project a mission could be understood as NATO planning to send troops to Ukraine, and prefers the name, “Pledge Assistance Coordination Training” – or “PACT“.
Ralf Ketzel, managing director of KNDS, manufacturer of Leopard 2 battle tanks, said,”The ability to deliver quickly is now exhausted,” adding, “Two years ago, a strategic decision should have been made that this will be a war lasting several years. Then we could deliver new material today,” in reference to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022.
Economy Minister Aušrinė Armonaitė said Rheinmetall would invest more than €180 million ($195 million) in the new plant, which is expected to produce 155-millimetre artillery shells. Rheinmetall is already active in Lithuania, operating a maintenance centre with defence company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann in the country since 2022. The facility maintains combat vehicles used by NATO combat units stationed in the region, as well as Leopard 2 battle tanks given by Germany to Ukraine.
The €100 billion ($107 billion) special fund created to update
Germany’s military after Russia invaded its neighbour in 2022 will be used up in a few years, Lindner said.
The armed forces will then have to be upgraded from regular funds. But this won’t be possible with a limited budget and
ever-growing debt, the finance minister went on.
The acquisition of the S-400, differing points of view on the war in Ukraine, eye-watering costs, a domestic 5th gen fighter program and never having operated any U.S. fighter aircraft are some of the reasons why India can’t and shouldn’t consider the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.