2024-02-29 06:29:52
Even at the beginning of the Ukraine war, Chancellor Scholz drew a red line: no German ground troops. Due to current circumstances, he is renewing his promise.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz has promised the Bundeswehr and the German population that his rejection of sending ground troops to Ukraine is an unshakable red line. “To be clear: As German Chancellor, I will not send soldiers from our Bundeswehr to Ukraine,” he said in a video message. “That’s true. Our soldiers can rely on that. And you can rely on that.”
NATO will not become a warring party, Scholz added. “It stays that way.” Germany agrees with its allies: “We don’t want Russia’s war against Ukraine to turn into a war between Russia and NATO.”
On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron did not rule out the use of ground troops after a meeting of around 20 heads of state and government in Paris. Scholz immediately rejected this. It was also agreed for the future “that there will be no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil that will be sent there by European states or NATO states.”
Scholz had already said at the beginning of the Ukraine war that sending ground troops was out of the question for him. After the USA, Germany is the most important supplier of weapons for the defense against Russia.