Security expert Christian Mölling expects that supplying western main battle tanks to Ukraine will shorten the war. Mölling said on Friday in the stern podcast “Ukraine – the situation” that war is always about “showing the enemy that he cannot achieve his political goal with his military means”.
This then forces him to negotiate. “I think we’re getting closer to that point,” emphasized the research director of the German Society for Foreign Relations. He expressed skepticism about the delivery of combat aircraft that Ukraine wants. Mölling said: “Aircraft are a different class than tanks because they are even more fragile and tiring to maintain.” He expressed doubts that Ukraine could use Western jets militarily.
According to Mölling, fundamental considerations do not stand in the way of a delivery: “I don’t see any new quality in the debate in this,” he said. He emphasized that the goal is to create new options for Ukraine and limit those of Russia. “How should it be otherwise than with an escalation?” he asked. “It’s not a circle of chairs that’s taking place there.” In his estimation, Germany will hardly be asked to provide Bundeswehr jets anyway. “Of course, Germany is fine here at the moment, because what we can deliver is something you wouldn’t want to wish the Ukraine.”
Mölling criticized that the federal government had taken too long to get through to the delivery of battle tanks. An earlier decision would have given Ukraine more military options. In addition, the “bitter aftertaste remains that with the time we have lost, human lives have also been lost”. Molling asked:
“What prevented Olaf Scholz from starting the same initiative six months ago?” The federal government let itself drift and has no plan of its own on how to support Ukraine.
