Defense expert Christian Mölling has rejected criticism of support for Ukraine with German tax money. Mölling said on Friday in the stern podcast “Ukraine – the situation” that the greatest danger to our prosperity would be if war came to us. The aid for Ukraine is therefore by no means a bottomless pit for German and European taxpayers, as the left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht had complained. “We are investing in our security here,” said the research director of the German Council on Foreign Relations.
“We are currently paying off a debt – because what we called a peace dividend has become a mortgage on our security.” He was referring to the period before the Russian attack on Ukraine, when a major land war in Europe seemed almost impossible and military spending was being cut back. From Mölling’s point of view, this was a serious mistake that is causing high costs today. “We basically gambled away. That means the dividend wasn’t a dividend,” emphasized the expert. And added: “Now we stand here and realize that we should have used the money ten years ago.”
Mölling sharply criticized the linking of aid to Ukraine with social spending in Germany. “This ultimately leads to the suffering of Ukrainians being played off against the problems we have in Germany with social injustice,” he says. He accused Wagenknecht of the fact that, as a “left-wing politician, she pushes aside questions of international solidarity, humanity and oppression and, so to speak, puts the national social issues so much in the foreground.”
According to Mölling’s analysis, the previous energy policy also increased the expenditure that is now incurred because of the war. “It’s not just about the costs of the war,” he said. “It wasn’t as if this dependence in the energy sector wasn’t known before the Russians’ war of aggression.” He warned against falling back into old patterns once the war in Ukraine was over. “One can only hope that we learn from this in the future,” he said. Mölling emphasized that social cohesion is important in order to maintain support for Ukraine’s war efforts – and thus for its own security. “The two belong together.”
