Chancellor Olaf Scholz has blocked a three-billion-euro air defense package for Ukraine, in one of his last key decisions before the election, German media reported.
Scholz reportedly rejected a request for an “urgent and necessary” arms package from Annalena Baerbock, the German foreign minister, and Boris Pistorius, the defense minister.
The package would include further deliveries of Iris-T air defense missiles, Patriot air defense missiles, howitzers and ammunition as Ukraine continues its counteroffensive in Russia’s Kursk region.
It came after Ukrainian officials sent a list to Western allies identifying their most urgently needed equipment, with air defense missiles at the top of the list.
According to German magazine Spiegel, citing sources in the German government, Scholz did not consider the package necessary and rejected it. The German government declined to comment on the internal cabinet dispute.
Germany is Ukraine’s biggest financial backer in Europe, providing 7.1 billion euros in military aid in 2024 alone, but Scholz has faced criticism for being slow or unwilling to deliver the weapons.
Scholz has repeatedly rejected the “transfer” of long-range Taurus missiles, which would allow Kiev to strike targets deep inside Russia, including Moscow.
The chancellor argues that such a move would be a major escalation that would risk dragging Germany into war or potentially triggering a global nuclear conflict.
Scholz’s rejection of the latest military aid package comes just weeks before elections on February 23, in which polls show him soundly defeated by the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
His decision could potentially be an attempt to woo Social Democratic Party (SPD) voters, many of whom come from Germany’s former communist east and oppose military aid to Ukraine. Scholz’s party is also in danger of losing voters to Sahra Wagenknecht’s new alliance (BSW), an anti-migrant, left-wing populist party with a friendly stance towards Russia.
Scholz’s decision to block military aid comes after Kiev launched a new “counter-offensive” in its border region of Kursk, five months after Ukrainian forces initially seized parts of the region in a cross-border incursion, the AP reports.
