“What a fatal encouragement to the aggressor it would be if the violation of international law and of the European peace order were to be rewarded,” he told the German parliament a good year after the start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and the subsequent realignment of German security policy.
Scholz also said that he saw no signs at present that the Russian President Vladimir Putin was willing to negotiate a just peace. Recently, the UN General Assembly had issued a clear message to Putin: “Withdraw your troops – and this war will immediately be over!” Scholz promised that no peace deal would be reached over the heads of the Ukrainians.
During a special session of the Bundestag on 27 February 2022 – three days after the war began – the chancellor had announced a 100 billion euro programme to modernise the Bundeswehr. The day before, the first shipments of arms to Ukraine for its defence against Russia had already been decided – marking a break with a basic principle of German policy that had applied until then, namely that weapons should never be supplied to war zones. At the time, Scholz had described the Russian invasion and its consequences as a “Zeitenwende” – an epochal turning point.
Source: deutschland.de
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