Social Democrat Christine Lambrecht already has a successor at the head of the German Defense Ministry, who will inherit the decision to re-export Leopard 2 tanks, a weapon Ukraine considers vital at this stage of the war. provoked by Russia. It will be 62-year-old Boris Pistorius, who has so far been Lower Saxony’s Minister of the Interior and Sports since 2013. With this appointment, Scholz violates parity in his tripartite government (Social Democrats, Liberals and Greens).

Christine Lambrecht announced her resignation on Monday after a string of missteps. The former minister said she was resigning because she attracted too much media attention at a critical time due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Lambrecht showed his little knowledge of the military, as he even said twice that he did not know what military ranks were. He included his twenty-year-old son on a Bundeswehr helicopter ride, and the young man devoted himself to bragging about it on his networks. But the most serious was the New Year’s Eve message, in which he hinted somewhat lightly at the war, and fireworks were heard in the background.

However, Lambrecht has been the face of a shaky policy in defense of the Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz himself, who is facing his first major government crisis since coming to power in December 2021. Zeitenwende (change of era) just three days after Putin ordered his troops to conduct a “special military operation” to “denazify” Ukraine. Before the Bundestag, he indicated that 100,000 million would be allocated for the modernization of the federal army. But his assistance to Ukraine was far from what was expected. When Ukraine announced that it had received 5,000 helmets from Germany, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko joked that the next thing they would receive from Berlin would be pillows.

This week is pivotal as the Ukraine donor team meets in Ramstein on Friday and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will be in Berlin on Thursday. After the UK announced that it was going to send 14 advanced Challenger 2 battle tanks to Ukraine, and after Poland showed its willingness to be part of an international coalition that will supply Kyiv with a large number of Leopard 2s to Germany in order to give the go-ahead for re-export. Pistorius will have to make that decision.

Pistorius is a politician very loyal to Scholz, who has long called for the lifting of sanctions against Russia. He chose the leadership of the SPD in 2019. Until the summer, he maintained a relationship with Doris Schröder-Kopf, the former fourth wife of former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a personal friend of Russian leader Vladimir Putin and his lobbyist in Europe.

German Economy and Climate Change Minister Robert Habeck said last week that Germany was not going to object to others helping Ukraine, implying that the way was open. Germany is also harder to ship because it only has about 300 Leopard 2s right now. eased. The Social Democrats are the most reserved, fearing that this will lead to an even greater escalation of the war. The policy of rapprochement with Russia, promoted in the past by both Conservative-led governments and Social Democrats, also has a great influence.

Poland, Finland and Denmark are strong supporters of Kyiv having these Western weapons as Russia prepares new waves of fighters and is expected to launch offensives in Donbas no later than spring to seize territory not yet under your control.