-Analysis-
PARIS — There are several ways to read the state scandal currently rocking Germany. First, there’s the frivolity of senior air force officers discussing over an unsecured network what were genuine state secrets: the delivery of missiles to Ukraine.
The result was a Russian interception, public diffusion of some of the more embarrassing exchanges and an inevitable political crisis in Germany. It’s a safe bet that security procedures are being reviewed across Europe to avoid the same fate as these reckless officers.
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The second entry point to understand this affair is to focus on the methods of Russian propaganda, which are served in healthy doses throughout. Vladimir Putin claims that Russia is fighting against NATO ? Well, here we see German officers talking about the number of shots needed to destroy the Kerch bridge linking Crimea to Russia, and revealing that British soldiers in civilian clothes are already on Ukrainian soil. It’s obviously fair game. And yet, the most interesting part of the story is elsewhere.
Fear of Co-belligerence
The crux of the matter is Germany’s reluctance to supply Ukraine with its famous long-range Taurus missiles.
France and the UK have supplied Scalp and Storm Shadow missiles, of shorter range than the German Taurus, but already causing serious damage on the Russian side. The contract signed with Kyiv stipulates that they will only be used within the perimeter of internationally recognized Ukraine, i.e. including Crimea and the Donbas. There is thus no question of strikes on Russian territory.
Berlin is in the eye of the storm.
Germany, on the other hand, refuses to take this step, and this is the subject of the intercepted discussion. Chancellor Olaf Scholz dreads “co-belligerence”, that ill-defined word that has come up at every stage over the past two years. In so doing, Germany supports Ukraine by writing it bigger checks — bigger than anyone else’s — but refuses to give it the most sophisticated means of defending itself.
This is the recrimination that Ukraine has had toward its allies in general, but it is Berlin in the eye of the storm more than ever right now.
Bridging the gap
This affair puts Scholz, already weakened by his shaky three-part coalition, on the defensive. It confirms that Berlin does not want to send German soldiers to Ukraine, as the Chancellor made clear to Emmanuel Macron last week. But it also reveals that Berlin does not want to train the Ukrainians to use these missiles on their own, something that could have been done months ago.
The wiretapping reveals the current French-German divergences.
Today, there are no trained Ukrainians, and therefore no missiles delivered because there are no trained Ukrainians: an implacable vicious circle.
The wiretapping reveals the current French-German divergences. This is particularly damaging at a time where Russia has gained the upper hand. Long ambivalent, France has opted for a more structured European commitment, a foreshadowing of Donald Trump’s possible victory in the United States.
Germany, on the other hand, has no such agenda: It is still in the process of digesting the parameters of the dangerous new world in which it is waking up. Paris and Berlin will have to overcome this gap as quickly as possible, for Ukraine — and for Europe.
