CDU foreign policy expert Roderich Kieswetter posits that the US will soon urge Germany to become more involved in Ukraine. “If we deliver Western main battle tanks to Ukraine, it is about improving the survivability of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” says Kiesewetter in an interview with ntv.de. Americans expect more from Germany here.

Kieswetter accuses the chancellor of having „allowed himself to be alarmed by the Russian narrative that it would be a provocation if German tanks were used against Russian forces.” The goal should be for Ukraine to „at least regain its borders in January” – and for Russia to lose the war. This means, „Frankly, no regime change from outside, because no one is attacking Russia.”

ntv.de: I was at a security conference in Halifax and before that in Washington. Are you afraid that the new Republican majority in the US House of Representatives will try to block support for Ukraine?

Roderich Kiesewetter: No, quite the opposite. We have met many Republican senators and congressmen who have made it clear that they stand with Ukraine. Support for Ukraine in the United States is bipartisan and will not diminish. Instead, I think, the Republicans will demand more from Europe, especially Germany. In our talks with the State and Defense Departments, it also became clear that Washington wanted more German support, for example the delivery of battle tanks.

How do you assess US President Joe Biden’s position on the war in Ukraine? He always says that „no Ukraine decision should be made without Ukraine” – but the US does not supply Ukraine with long-range HIMARS munitions due to concerns that Ukraine will use them to shoot targets in Russia.

In doing so, the United States wants to make it clear that it supports Ukraine in its goal of restoring its territorial integrity without contributing to further unnecessary escalation. This is a de-escalation step that Russia has not yet appreciated, on the contrary: the Russians in Ukraine have until the end of October. It attacked about 22,000 civilian targets, but only about 300 military targets. So I can imagine that the United States will reconsider its position.

Why does the United States itself not supply tanks to Ukraine?

I also asked the people I spoke to in Washington and Halifax. The Americans will be ready to supply main battle tanks. In theory, the Abrams main battle tank would be an option. There are three arguments against it. First of all, the Americans say that separate logistics chains should be created for Abrams, since they are not located in Europe. It will be different with Leopard because it is used by 13 European countries. The Marder armored personnel carrier is widely used in Europe. The second argument is consumption, which is much higher with the Abrams or Bradley infantry fighting vehicle than with the Leopard and Marder. If Abrams were running on kerosene, they would need at least two and a half times as much as Leopard. Bradleys and Abrams are much more serviceable than relatively powerful Leopard tanks – Americans learned this with bitterness in the Gulf Wars.

What is the third argument?

…is also understandable. Abrams weighs more than 60 tons. The Americans have limited transport capacity – with the same transport capacity, they can deliver three HIMARS on their ships or in their transport aircraft.

Is there pressure from Washington on the federal government to supply Ukraine with combat tanks? So far, the only public statement on this has been the US ambassador in Berlin, who said in September that her expectations of Germany were „higher” than they had been before.

There are very clear indications that the US government is letting the Germans do what they are doing. But they expect, as a sign of burden-sharing, that Germany will jump over its shadow and finally hand over the tanks. This is what I was told by senior interlocutors at the US State Department and the Pentagon, as well as by Democratic senators with whom I spoke. They made it clear that they expected it. I expect that Congress will soon express itself accordingly and encourage Germany. Until now, Washington assumed that Germany would come up with it on its own initiative. In any case, we – fellow parliamentarians Peter Baer, ​​Thomas Silberhorn and myself – encouraged our interlocutors at the Security Conference in Halifax to communicate this more clearly.

Supplying Western battle tanks to Ukraine, Scholz argues, would be a solo effort.

Scholz did „Go It Alone” himself. Spain, among others, had talked informally with Germany very early on about tank shipments.

Olaf Schultz said in June that there had been no demand from Spain.

They were informal requests so the federal government could say no to saving face. The fact that other countries do not supply tanks, as Schulz always emphasizes, is the fault of the federal government itself. But even the discussion of „Western battle tanks” is completely wrong.

in which way?

Western countries have already delivered hundreds of battle tanks to Ukraine. The Poles originally wanted to deliver 600 T-72s and wanted a commitment from Germany to receive the appropriate number of Leopard tanks in return. This request has not been answered for several months. Then in July came the announcement that 20 Tigers had been delivered. In the end, Poland delivered 240 T-72 and Order of 1,000 main battle tanks from South Korea.

In my view, the chancellor was unsettled by the Russian narrative that it would be a provocation if German tanks were used against Russian forces. In fact, it is about something completely different: if a Soviet-made main battle tank explodes, there will be nothing left of the crew. Temperatures of several thousand degrees occur there because the ammunition and crew lounge are not spatially separated. If the hit hit there, the probability of survival is zero. Hundreds of battle tanks have already been lost, three times as many lives.

Military expert Gustav Grisel of the European Council on Foreign Relations SaysUkrainian soldiers often do not lead the battle with tanks, but sit on them, „because abroad the chances of survival are better.”

That’s how it is. Many Ukrainians have been hit by shrapnel because they have to go to work without protection. When we deliver Western main battle tanks to Ukraine, the goal is to improve the survival of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Americans expect more from Germany here.

The chancellor says that the important thing is that Russia is not winning this war and Ukraine is not losing it.

But how is that defined? In my opinion, our goal should be for Russia to lose and for Ukraine to win. This objective must be concretely defined. For Ukraine to win must mean that it can at least regain its borders in January, preferably in 2014. Everything else is up for negotiation. The fact that Russia is losing means that Russia must withdraw, and learn to lose as Germany did in 1945. It must pay reparations and hand over war criminals to an international tribunal. The fact that Russia must lose does not explicitly mean regime change from the outside, because no one is attacking Russia. Russia has conquered a country, but the future of Russia is up to the Russian people.

In July, Schulz will be a member of the Bundestag’s Foreign Affairs Committee He saidthat the delivery of the Marder tanks would be a „terrible escalation”.

It is this terrible escalation that Russia caused by committing war crimes against Ukraine, waging war against the civilian population, against civilian infrastructure. This is a war of extermination like the one that Hitler Germany waged from 1941 to 1944 on the Soviet Union and especially on Ukrainian soil. The delivery of Marder APCs will prevent this terrible escalation! Of course, this must be coordinated at the European level.

In their communications about the Ukraine war, Schulz and the Social Democrats always warned that Russia could use nuclear weapons.

This was always a bogus argument, but Schulz has now denied it himself. after the G20 Summit said the advisor on ZDFThrough the announcement of the summit and his previous visit to China, this method, that is, the use of nuclear weapons, is „obstructed”. So there is little reason to deny Ukraine access to Western main battle tanks.

Without Western support, Ukraine cannot wage war, let alone win it. How stable is this support?

Americans are the catalyst. Germany is showing „clear leadership,” the chancellor said, and, as SPD leader Klingbeil put it, Germany should ’a claim of leading strength’ You have, says Defense Minister Lambrecht Germany „Leadership whether we want it or not”. But in the end, the Americans still have to remind the federal government that “leading” does not mean starving Ukraine, but enabling it to “victory” on its own initiative.

Hubertus Volmer spoke to Roderich Kiesewetter