Mr. Chancellor,
this time
last year,
I had the privilege of sitting here
with President Zelensky.
The United States had told him,
Maybe you shouldn’t leave your country
because something might happen.
But he came in anyway to say
that our fight is your fight,
as he did again.
Many nations here,
with the exception of the US and UK,
did not believe in the intelligence
that Vladimir Putin would in fact invade.
And then three days later, it did.
You heard
President Zelensky
just say, This must be over this year.
Do you share that belief
that it can and must be?
I think this is really a very brutal war.
It is the imperialistic
approach of Russia to conquer
the whole Ukraine
still or big parts of it.
And he is doing this very much furor
with a lot of brutal
impact on the soil of the Ukraine.
And many people suffer from that dying
men, women, children,
and young and old people.
And this is what we should know.
So this is what we can do
now facing this situation.
And that is
giving the best support we can.
And this is why Germany enlarged
constantly its capacity of support
for the Ukraine.
And we did so with the effect that
now we can say that
Germany is the biggest supplier
also of weapons to Ukraine
in continental Europe.
And we will continue to be there.
But you in your
speech said
we have to be ready for the long haul.
I mean, you must strategize.
You must think among yourselves
how long this could last.
Do you have a target date?
I think it is wise
just to be prepared for a long war.
And it is wise to give Putin the message
that we are ready to stay all the time
together with Ukraine
and that we will
constantly support the country.
So it is not really a very good idea
that in this conference
or at this podium,
the two of us discuss the question
when exactly in which months
this war will end.
The really important decision
we should take
all together is saying
that we are willing to do it
as long as necessary
and that we will do our best.
Do you believe
do you believe
that NATO’s sorry
the allies will stay united?
And do you believe that your people
will stay behind
you and behind this effort?
Yes.
First,
I am absolutely sure that Putin never
expected that there would be a
that the United Europe
and that there
would be at that United
what he never thought that
the transatlantic partnership would work
that good.
But also,
he never thought
that there would be so much support
for Ukraine
from many other countries
all over the globe.
And he never expected
that there would be a majority of people
voting in the General Assembly,
saying that this is a war
against aggression
that could not be accepted.
And he never expected
that even in the G20 meeting,
we had a very strict
sentence about this war
and the Russian aggression
and the absolute
clear sentence
that nuclear weapons
should not be used in this war.
So the unity
is someone he never expected.
And it is our task,
but also our chance that we stick to it.
I am absolutely
sure that we will.
And looking at the situation
in my country,
I see that there is a broad support
for the strategy
and activities of the government.
Yes, there are some.
And we are a democratic country
that are not that sure
whether it is really a good idea
to do all these sanctions and to
and to deploy
all this many weapons to Ukraine.
But even the big majority of those
is in the end
accepting that the government
has to take a responsible
decision and
trust us in doing what we do.
And even those who possibly sometimes
think we should do something more
really understand
that it is very good
that we stick together,
that we never go alone,
and that we just do it together
with our friends and partners,
and especially with the United States.
And this is why I’m also sure
that we will have
the support of our people for the things
we are having to do.
Obviously, one can’t put a date
on the end
However, it does depend,
I suppose,
on the amount of help that you send
and the speed with which you send it.
So no point in
going over the length of time
it took to get the leopard tanks
and for you to say that
this sort of choreography
between the UK, US and Germany.
But now
you seem to
be in the position of having to persuade
all those other countries
that we’re trying to get you
to send the leopards or
their leopard to actually send them
why
to
there is a question
I have to ask two others,
especially those
who were so much urging me
to act in a special way.
And I will just repeat,
the only strategy for being united
is never doing something
just for your own
and to discuss
with your friends and partners.
And this is what we did.
And I really appreciate very much
the strong alliance
with the United States in this case.
It is very good
that we did a lot
and not just the last step together.
And I’m
sure we will continue
to be together
in this very difficult case.
When will they get there?
When will the tanks get there?
Yours and the others.
So we are working.
The minister of defense is here.
He’s working very hard to make it happen.
And the industry is doing the same
so that we are able to deploy the first
leopard tanks very soon.
And also with trained soldiers.
This is what we already started.
And we are doing
so also in giving training and
and support for for all the maintenance
which is necessary and
ammunition to other parties
that will join.
And as I learned,
many are not able to deliver the most
modern tanks, which we do.
I hope some more will join
also in this case.
But in the ones they are delivering
we will give the support as well.
And as you know,
there is
also a big number of older tanks
which we will deliver.
And so this is altogether what we can do
It’s part of our joint activity.
And I am sure that in the end,
it has a
concrete military
effect But the more most important effect
this case is
that Putin learns
that it is a miscalculation
if he thinks he can just
stick to this course as long as necessary
and then we will stop our support.
This will not happen.
John Steck, there’s
also some worrying information or reality
about your own and generally NATO’s
ammunition stockpiles.
Secretary general said
this week said
what used to take 12
or so months to do
and produce is now taking 28 months.
Is that a worry?
I mean, they are using a huge amount of
of shells obviously.
But how
how can you continue
to prosecute this war
if you’re running out of ammunition
and the production has
not yet ramped ramped up
First, I discussed very often visions
and also with Boris,
the defense minister in Germany,
and my foreign minister, Annalena
that we have to change
the way of dealing with the industry.
So in the last year, more and more
we thought that the relation between
the public Defense Department
and the industry is something
very similar
to a company that is buying a car.
So there is always a stock of cars
as a permanent production.
There’s always what you need
for maintenance
The way we did it in the past,
in the last
20 years or so, is that we once ordered
and we agreed
that the production is stopping
because
we have already bought what we need.
So we have to understand
that for security
we have to change the way
of dealing this fact.
We need a permanent
production of the most important weapons
we are using.
And this is also due
to maintenance questions
and this is also due
to the question of ammunition.
And so this is what we are learning.
But learning
it is means that we are now
taking action
in case of our old defense capabilities,
but also doing it in supporting Ukraine.
So you already may have heard that
we though
this is a weapon that has not been used
and produced for I think, 20 or 30 years.
We are now producing, again,
the ammunition for the gap
at Flag Tank,
which is very essential
in defending Ukraine
from our from from missiles
and other things.
And it is something
which we are starting
so that there is a constant supply.
We also discuss what we can do
for achieving the chance
that the munition
that works with the tanks
that are in use in Ukraine
most of Eastern and Russian origin
could also be continued.
And there are a lot
and I see them of our Eastern partners
who could be very good partners
in creating the production in this case.
So we are willing to do our best that a
permanent supply is feasible.
