In the war against Ukraine, the Russian army is currently mainly destroying important infrastructure. This also entails new challenges for western countries and especially for Germany, which Maybrit Illner will discuss.
The Russian army is losing the war on the ground in Ukraine. It has been destroying critical infrastructure for weeks. In the capital Kyiv, residents have to save electricity. A harsh winter is imminent. Meanwhile, the Kremlin claims Ukrainians are capable of building and using dirty bombs. The tactics of the Russian side are clear: it is about wearing down the Ukrainian population - but also about weakening European cohesion, as becomes clear in the discussion with Maybrit Illner on ZDF.
Sergey Lagodinsky, member of the Greens in the European Parliament, expresses his incomprehension at the demand by SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich for diplomatic initiatives to end the war. "We also need to have clarifying talks among ourselves about how we can get a chancellor party to take a unified line," demands the Russian-born politician. The different signals from the SPD not only damaged the coalition, but also the EU. "In Brussels, we as Germany are at the bottom when we look at how the Eastern European countries are talking about us. We now have a problem with France. We haven't yet understood that the EU has to be held together," said Lagodinsky. He misses crisis management from the highest positions in Germany, he says.
With the actions of the past few weeks, Putin has closed the door to negotiations, adds Russia expert Alina Fix from the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. And the deputy chairwoman of the European Parliament, Katarina Barley from the SPD, makes it clear that nobody in her party wants to conduct "negotiations in this form", not even Mützenich. Instead, in view of the Russian attacks on Ukraine, she demands: "We have to keep up the pressure on the Russian economy. We have to make it even more difficult for Putin to organize supplies for his military."
Putin is essentially pursuing two goals with his terror strategy. The Russian army is intent on destroying the Ukrainian economy and thus making it more difficult for supplies to be delivered from the West, analyzes military expert Gustav Gressel from the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), a think tank that advocates a strong role for the EU used in the world. Gressel explains: "The supply of military equipment and ammunition is the lifeline of the Ukrainian army. The war costs the country between 30 and 40 million euros a day. The money has to come from somewhere. The more the economy in Ukraine is destroyed, the less can Ukraine produce, and the less Ukraine can pay for the supplies, so the money has to be advanced, credited, or gifted." According to Gressel, Putin's calculation is that the West will eventually have enough. "He's counting on someone banging on the table and saying now you have to accept the annexations."
Gressel calls the Kremlin's claim that Ukraine is capable of building a dirty bomb "nonsense." The pictures published by Russia as evidence are "on the level of a twelve-year-old who googles something." "Someone will surely tell him that Putin is making a fool of himself in foreign policy."
The two experts are particularly disappointed with the sluggish European support for Ukraine. Gressel: "There are far too many political deadlocks, there is far too much indecisiveness. We can't afford that for long."
"There's still room for improvement," says Liana Fix. For example, criticism has come from Kyiv that of the nine billion euros in credit that the EU has granted, six billion have not yet been paid out. Unlike the EU, the United States sent money to Kyiv on a monthly basis, Fix said. "In addition, there is a gap in protection between the EU and the US that is constantly widening."
Liana Fix criticizes that the problem is that Germany is not prepared to play a leading role in this war. The US would have done that instead. "Europeans sit back, feeling that it's safer to operate in the slipstream of the US."
For Gustav Gressel it is unclear how long the USA will continue to maintain this position. "We have a divided United States," he says. "And we can't count on the Americans always being in the lead with the strength they've had up until now." The Defense and State Departments in Washington are already at odds over the role of the United States. Gressel: "If we want to prevent Russia from becoming the dominant military power in Europe and from dictating the order in Europe through the strength of its military dominance, we must ensure that it loses this war." To do this, arms deliveries to Ukraine would have to be coordinated at European level.
Liana Fix is also not sure about the future role of the USA. She believes that Trump-loyal Republicans will come back in the "mid-terms," the midterm elections in the United States on Tuesday after next. They would then question support for Ukraine, because the US had another problem to solve with China, and that would take precedence.
At the end of the program, Green politician Lagodinsky summarizes what this means for Europe in an impressive way: "We live in a world that has changed completely. And we have to change too. The role that we have to find is an EU, that is actively trying to attract other countries, that is positioning itself and developing geostrategically. We have to get there. I expect leadership from all of us."
