Two massive security scandals this weekend have given a shot in the arm to Putin’s war on Ukraine. Yet again they have exposed Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Germany as the West’s weakest link in its ongoing confrontation with Russia.

Scandal Number One came when the loose-lipped Chancellor revealed that British and French troops were in Ukraine helping the embattled country’s soldiers operate long range Storm Shadow cruise missiles targeting the Russian invaders. Explaining why Germany would not supply Taurus missiles, its own version of the Storm Shadow system, to Ukraine, Scholz said that doing this would make Germany an active participant in the war.

These are embarrassing and alarming revelations of Berlin’s refusal to show real solidarity with its Nato allies

Scholz’s careless talk potentially put the lives of British troops in peril and immediately drew a storm of criticism from his allies and political opponents. Tory MP Tobias Elwood, former chairman of the Commons Defence Committee, accused him of a ‘flagrant breach of intelligence’ designed to deflect attention from German reluctance in arming Ukraine. In Germany itself, a spokesman for the main opposition CDU party said the Social Democratic Chancellor was being ‘hugely irresponsible’.

Hard on the heels of Scholz’s blunder came an even more serious security breach. Lt General Ingo Gerhartz, chief of the German Luftwaffe Air Force, held a video conference with three senior colleagues which – astonishingly – was not encrypted. It was promptly picked up and gleefully broadcast in full by Margarita Simonyan, the head of Russia Today, one of Moscow’s state run TV channesl.

Speaking over an unsecured phone line from a hotel room in Singapore, Gen Gerhartz’s 38-minute conference call with his colleagues confirmed that British troops were ‘on the ground’ in Ukraine, and were moving the Storm Shadow missiles on Ridgeback transporters.

QOSHE - Germany is the West’s weakest link against Putin - Nigel Jones
menu_open
Columnists Actual . Favourites . Archive
We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close
Aa Aa Aa
- A +

Germany is the West’s weakest link against Putin

24 14
04.03.2024

Two massive security scandals this weekend have given a shot in the arm to Putin’s war on Ukraine. Yet again they have exposed Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Germany as the West’s weakest link in its ongoing confrontation with Russia.

Scandal Number One came when the loose-lipped Chancellor revealed that British and French troops were in Ukraine helping the embattled country’s soldiers operate long range Storm Shadow cruise missiles targeting the Russian invaders. Explaining why........

© The Spectator


Get it on Google Play