Germany steps on the brake. After months by sending state -of -the -art armament to Ukraine, the Olaf Scholz government has decided to stop dry. Neither more Taurus missiles nor more patriot systems. Berlin considers that he has already done a lot and now puts the focus on his own safety. It was made clear by the Minister of Defense, Boris Pistorius, just before flying to Washington, where he plans to meet with his American counterpart to treat the future of military cooperation with kyiv and the redistribution of air defense systems within NATO. The decision of one of the pillars of the Alliance arrives at a key moment for Ukraine and forces the rest of the allies to move. The game has only changed hands.
The message leaves no doubt. “We cannot give more,” Pistorius settled in an interview prior to his trip to the US, collected by the Lithuanian portal Technologijos. The minister recalled that Germany has already delivered to Ukraine three of its twelve Patriot Air Defense Systems between 2023 and 2024. Today, there are only six operations left on German soil. And not even everyone is available: one is in maintenance or in training maneuvers, and two have temporarily lent themselves to Poland. “It’s really little, especially if we take into account the objectives that NATO marks,” he insisted.
The context is relevant. Since the large -scale Russian invasion began, Berlin has duplicated his defense budget. Only in 2024, 31,000 million euros have been allocated to rearma. In addition, the German executive plans to increase the size of the army until reaching 460,000 troops, a considerable leap that points to a deep transformation of the Bundeswehr. Germany does not want to be left behind in the new cast of European military power, but has decided that continuing to reinforce Ukraine cannot be done at the expense of its own defense capacity.
The United States takes the witness … with European money
While Pistorius prepared his official visit to Washington, other threads moved in the US capital. Donald Trump, president of the United States, received the new NATO general secretary, the Dutch Mark Rutte, to address the future of support for kyiv. The result: Washington will supply Ukraine new patriot defense systems and other advanced teams. Who pays it? Europe. It will be the European Union that finance the operation, thus marking a new balance in the shared load between allies.
The change is significant. Germany has so far been one of the main weapons donors for Ukraine, but has been planted. The United States, on the other hand, reinforces its supplier role, although the cost is assumed by others. A movement that can have consequences on both the battlefield and within the Atlantic Alliance itself.
For now, Ukraine will receive the material he has requested so much. But with Berlin out of the equation and other countries looking sideways, the general panorama begins to change. Each ally measures its steps, and resources – for a long time that full machine is manufactured – are not unlimited.
