Ramstein-8: Ukrainian Diplomat Reveals Meeting’s Main Intrigue

Very important decisions were made the day before.

Today, a meeting of Western defense ministers began at Ramstein Air Base. What decisions can be expected from it? The Charter97.org website talked about this with Oleksandr Khara, Ukrainian diplomat and political scientist, expert of the Maidan of Foreign Affairs Foundation.

— First of all, yesterday there were very pleasant decisions. Nine Central and Northern European countries, along with Britain, have said they are going to dramatically improve the quality and quantity of weapons provided to Ukraine. The United States also announced $2.5 billion in aid, including new types of equipment such as the Stryker. These are quite valuable systems for Ukraine that will allow us to liberate the occupied territories from the Russian fascists.

And, accordingly, the main intrigue at Ramstein is how to convince Germany to unblock the supply of tanks to Ukraine. About a week and a half ago, the British decided to provide us with more than ten Challenger 2s. These are the first Western tanks that will be in service with the Ukrainian Defense Forces. Plus, a group of countries, under the initiative of Poland, is ready to provide Ukraine with German-made Leopard tanks as a coalition. Therefore, Germany no longer has serious arguments to continue not to supply tanks to Ukraine.

Therefore, we are waiting for a positive decision regarding Leopards. This will seriously change the balance of forces at the front, and the sooner we liberate the territory, the sooner peace will come in Ukraine and Europe. Accordingly, the problem of Russia will be at least partially solved.

— Why is Germany generally slowing down the supply of Leopard tanks to Ukraine?

— There are several points, the first I would call the evolution of thinking. Before the invasion itself, the Germans were not particularly willing to help Ukraine in any way. We were helped by just the same British and Americans, who crossed their psychological barriers, began to supply Stingers. Then they saw the success of the Ukrainian armed forces and gave armored vehicles, long-range artillery and the same HIMARS, and now even Patriot and other complex and sensitive systems. Roughly speaking, the thinking has changed on the topic of what can and cannot be given, in terms of whether Ukraine is able to use it. This is one story.

The second is the red lines “how the Kremlin will react to this.” In Moscow, in fact, they did not react in any way to the fact that strikes were launched both on the territory occupied by Russia, I mean, first of all, the Crimea, and on Russian territory itself, when there were explosions at airfields with bombers. The same Belgorod sounds constantly in the news.

That is, there is no reaction that the Germans and Americans were afraid of. This is one moment. And the second moment — the only way Russia can escalate the situation is to launch a nuclear strike on Ukraine. All other war crimes against humanity that could have been committed, the Russians have already committed in Ukraine and continue to commit. Therefore, this is also a factor, we prove that Russia is not capable of escalating further.

And the last moment remained, exclusively German, these are the psychological blocks and traumas of the Second World War both before the Jews, that they committed such a crime that for several generations they recall this and apologize to the Jewish people, and for some reason in relation to the Russians.

We know history very well. During World War II, Belarusians and Ukrainians suffered the most from the Nazis. But for some reason, the Germans somehow forget this, and the blame is more accentuated before Moscow and the Russians, of whom not so many died, compared to our peoples. And this psychological block, one might even say, some kind of historical perversion, still has an impact. Even though most of Scholz's entourage, the coalition allies and a huge number of Germans, are in favor of providing Ukraine with tanks to bring the end of this war closer. But still, consciousness is an extremely inert thing, and they are still hesitating, despite all the arguments that, by and large, they have no way out.

— In addition to tanks that are so badly needed, how else can the West help Ukraine in countering Russian aggression?

— Of course, Ukraine needs a lot more than a dozen billion dollars for a simple reason. We are at war with the largest nuclear state in the world. If we talk about strategic weapons, warheads and carriers, then there is parity with the United States. And in terms of tactical Russia is much ahead, it has a much larger reserve.

That is, the first point is that Russia is the largest nuclear state. The second point is that despite all the losses in Ukraine, that we destroyed the most combat-ready forces that they had, the Russian Federation still remains one of the largest states in terms of conventional weapons. In fact, we are waging the war for which the West prepared during the Cold War, and then held back Russia, primarily through NATO. And now we, one state, are actually waging such a war against all the scrap metal that has been accumulating since 1945. So naturally we need a lot of things.

If we are talking about systems, then we definitely need more air defense systems. Ukraine is a big country, and those Patriots that we are promised, NASAMS and other systems do not cover all those cities and critical infrastructure nodes that we have.

Secondly, we need hundreds of tanks, because no matter how old are the tanks that are now thrown into the furnace of war, Russia still has a lot of them. Accordingly, in order to free the territory, we need a lot of armor. Here it is also worth noting a very important factor for us Ukrainians — getting more modern equipment means not only that we will be able to liberate our lands faster, but most importantly, we will be able to do this with fewer losses on the Ukrainian side.

There are 140 million Russians, 35-40 million Ukrainians, so every life of a Ukrainian is valuable for us, and accordingly we want to save as many civilians and military men as possible. Therefore, better equipment, more long-range weapons — that's all we need. I'm not talking about operational-tactical missiles, the same ATACMS, which would make it possible to destroy the bases from which Russian planes take off to bomb peaceful Ukrainian cities. So far, unfortunately, the Americans are not taking this step.

Naturally, we also need aviation, but this is the next stage. I am absolutely sure that we will have it, but so far our partners are not ready to take this step. There are many different reasons for this. The most important thing is that they are guided by the plans of the Ukrainian General Staff, what we need at the moment, and what will be needed in a month or two for the tasks that the political leadership sets. Of course, aviation would be to our advantage, but at the moment armor, artillery, shells, primarily of the NATO type, as well as more long-range systems, are more important. Therefore, let's hope that all this will be in the next assistance packages.

We are grateful to our partners. There are countries like the United States that give us the most in quantitative terms, I mean technology and finance, I think they've already given 27 billion dollars since the beginning of the invasion. But there are also small countries, such as Estonia, which, simply for its size of economy and armed forces, gives much more than the industrially and economically more developed countries of Europe. I'm not talking about our Polish friends, with whom we have no particular difference in the vision of this war. This level of relationship will set the tone for Europe for a long period of time.

We need a lot of things both now in order to win, and then in order to hold back the horde, which will not go anywhere. Even if Russia falls apart, it will pose a threat to peace and civilization, since there are nuclear weapons, there are definitely chemical weapons, which was proved by the use of Novichok. I am sure that biological weapons may also be found somewhere, because the Russians cannot be trusted at all. The presumption of guilt must be held against them in all matters until they prove otherwise. Accordingly, we need a lot of weapons in order to maintain our independence and protect Europe as well.

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