German Chancellor Warns Ukraine Not to Attack Russian Territory with NATO Weapons

OLDENBURG IN HOLSTEIN, GERMANY - AUGUST 25: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz poses in front o
Morris MacMatzen/Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Monday that Ukraine must not use weapons supplied by Germany to attack Russian territory, so that a war between NATO and Moscow can be avoided.

“Everything must be done to prevent a war between Russia and NATO,” was the message to Ukraine from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as he appeared at a town hall meeting with the public in the town of Bendorf on Monday.

Scholz said that as such, Ukraine is not permitted to shell Russian territory with weapons supplied by Germany and added that he believed other Western powers supplying arms would have made similar demands of Kyiv. The German leader did not stipulate, however, if this rule would apply to Crimea, which both Ukraine and Russia claim rights to but has been under control of Moscow since Vladimir Putin illegally annexed the territory in 2014.

The warnings from Scholz came as he confirmed that Ukraine can expect to receive ammunition for the German-made Gepard anti-aircraft gun starting from August of this year. He said that the production lines are currently being set up, but that it may take some time before shipments are able to be made.

Germany has previously supplied Ukraine with 34 Gepard anti-aircraft guns with with six thousand rounds of ammunition, however, it now plans on sending at least three more guns alongside 300,000 rounds of ammo.

In the wake of the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Armed Forces last February, Germany reveresed its decades-long policy of not sending military arms into conflict zones. The decision also impacted other European nations, as German had previously supplied them with weapons on the condition that German-made hardware would not be sent into warzones.

The threat of Ukraine using NATO weapons against Russian territory has perhaps become of increasing worry following two major attacks suspected to have been perpetrated by Kyiv.

Over the weekend, a Russian oil resevoir in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol was set on fire as a result of a drone attack, acording to the Moscow-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhayev. This was preceded by an apparent drone attack in the Russian mainland itself, with German media claiming that the strike was an attempt by Ukraine to assasinate Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The decision to send tanks and other weapons from Germany’s already depleted military stock — with the country consistently failing to meet its NATO spending commitments despite being the largest economy of Europe — has left a “huge gap” in the country’s defences.

The current state of the German military is so poor, according to commander-in-chief of the Bundeswehr Boris Pistorius, that if called upon the German Armed Forces would be unable to defend their nation from an agressor such as Russia.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka

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