German chancellor Olaf Scholz's governing coalition has agreed in principle to double the country's military aid for Ukraine next year to 8 billion euros ($8.5 billion), a political source in Berlin said on Sunday.
  • culpritus [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    313·
    1 year ago

    What about that whole ‘Ukraine did Nordstream’ narrative? Guess Germany knows it’s a cover story.

    • Sowhatever@discuss.tchncs.de
      106·
      1 year ago

      I don’t think the majority in Germany care about nord stream, even if it was intact, we stopped importing gas from Russia more than a year ago and no one plans to resume it anytime soon. It’s like slashing the tires on a car you sold for scrap last week.

      • Ooops@kbin.social
        57·
        1 year ago

        The ones that care are relistic: Ukraine support against Russia right now makes sense geopolitical. Doesn’t mean they won’t remember that an ally was willing to conduct an active act of war against their infrastructure for their own stupid narratives - as if it wasn’t actually unused already anyway. The fact that it was basically already discarded only means it’s not of immidiate importance, but I’m quite sure Ukraine is aiming for more cooperation with Germany and the EU. And you can bet that there are poeple who will take that into account when evaluating how much Ukraine can be trusted.

        It’s like slashing the tires on a car you sold for scrap last week.

        More like you plan to sell it for scrap anyway and then your neighbour smashes the wind shields on purpose. It’s not an actual loss concerning you, but the act itself will be remembered.

    • sadreality@kbin.social
      117·
      1 year ago

      I heard Zelensky did himself while on vacation in the Baltic. No big deal, get a boat, get some snorkerls, boom!

      All of this in NATO waters but he borrowed harry potters cloak, so it worked out.

    • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
      2·
      1 year ago

      I guess some things are more important to them. I’m sure the drivers making the deliveries will be ordered to put on their saddest faces

  • knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml
    248·
    1 year ago

    But there’s no additional money available for infrastructure and social services within Germany. Something something Bundeshaushalt excuse and EU federal debt limit.

    • Metal Zealot@lemmy.ml
      176·
      1 year ago

      Whew, watch out, I mentioned the same kind of sentiment on a post about the billions of dollars that America is sending for the war, and got lectured on “that’s not how government budgeting works and you know it blah blah blah”

      • knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml
        169·
        1 year ago

        It’s neat how it’s so easy for capitalist governments to authorize money for killing people, but when it comes to social spending there isn’t even a penny to spare.

        The German finance minister has been gleeful up on his high horse preventing additional spending on important things Germans need, but approved a €100B special fund for the military in 2022 outside of the bounds of the federal budget.

        I think it’s also worth mentioning that most of the US “aid” is actually loans. Even their food aid comes with real strong strings attached. The US owns Ukraine at this point. Although I’d don’t know how German aid spending or military spending in support of Israel in general is structured.

        • Metal Zealot@lemmy.ml
          114·
          1 year ago

          Investing in making people die over-seas, rather than the wellbeing of their own population that essentially pays their wage…
          Yea, anyone would find that blatantly suspicious. Their goals are perfectly clear.

          But people have drank so much USA Koolaid that they cant possibly imagine a country running any differently.

          • knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml
            4·
            1 year ago

            It’s not just Koolaid.

            The relative domestic prosperity of the US is built upon that very overseas death and exploitation.

            The people of the imperial core have some material interest in keeping that system of oppression going, even if they don’t realize it or think about it in those terms.

              • knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml
                1·
                1 year ago

                I don’t think I can agree with that.

                Of course the capitalist class generally know what they’re doing, but that’s not who I was talking about.

                I meant that everyday working people have a material interest in more or less keeping the status quo. I’m not sure that you can define this group as sociopaths.

    • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
      74·
      1 year ago

      If they’re unwilling to stop an aggressor at their doorstep for a fraction of their budget, having more infrastructure or social services won’t help them much

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
      1912·
      1 year ago

      Thing is that people running the west are completely detached from material reality. If you look at their backgrounds, they all come from media, law, lobbying, and so on. They think they can just will things to happen if they want them hard enough. They don’t understand that you can’t just spin up factories and create an educated workforce to operate them out of thin air.

      This leads to hilarious outcome like this one where EU leaders thought they could just dump money into shell production to increase it. Instead, the price for one artillery shell has gone up to 8,000 euros from 2,000 euros due to lack of supply and increased liquidity.

      https://www.reuters.com/world/nato-urges-common-standards-curbs-protectionism-boost-artillery-output-2023-10-24/

  • Adkml [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1810·
    1 year ago

    Great timing, I’m sure everybody is forgetting how it cost a small fortune to heat their home last winter right about now.

  • Habahnow@sh.itjust.works
    6·
    1 year ago

    This doesn’t appear to be anything official, right? not certain how much a coalition publicly agreeing to this translates to actual funding for Ukraine. Would also be nice to see how this funding stacks vs the US, and vs other EU country contributions.

  • porcupine@lemmygrad.ml
    3832·
    1 year ago

    Germany continuing their longstanding tradition of funding Nazi collaborators to kill Russians.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    If approved by parliament, where Scholz’s parties hold a majority, the boost would lift Germany’s defence spending to 2.1% of its gross domestic product target, beyond the 2% pledged by all North Atlantic Treaty Organization members, the source added.

    Lawmakers from Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Free Democrats and the Green party agreed on the increase in negotiations over the proposed 2024 federal budget ahead of a formal meeting of the budget committee of the Bundestag - or lower house of parliament - on Thursday, Nov. 16, the source said.

    A spokesperson for Germany’s Ministry of Defence said the Bundestag committee has not finished negotiations and declined to comment further.

    Defence minister Boris Pistorius, interviewed by broadcaster ARD, referred to the planned doubling of military aid to Ukraine.

    “It is a strong signal to Ukraine that we will not leave them in the lurch,” he said, adding the move, if agreed, would mean the annual budget allocation would be enough to last the whole year.

    Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper had also said the committee is due to approve the additional 4 billion euros.

    The original article contains 340 words, the summary contains 183 words. Saved 46%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • besbin@lemmygrad.ml
    73·
    1 year ago

    Is this just a kind of inflation/recession write off for the EU and USA at this point? oh, our economy is not doing so great, we are short by X% of development from project, let’s just write that off as ‘aids’ to Ukraine/Israel

    • tetris11@lemmy.ml
      23·
      1 year ago

      I do wish there was some honest reporting from at least one of the sides though.

      • crackajack@reddthat.com
        73·
        1 year ago

        Trolls and vatniks have been telling to the people it’s “getting cold” since last year to dissuade more support for Ukraine. Well, a lot more will lose than just heating for homes by tolerating Putin.

    • Kzin@lemmy.one
      2016·
      1 year ago

      Supporting a country’s right to sovereignty is fascist?

      No.

      • porcupine@lemmygrad.ml
        139·
        1 year ago

        “Suddenly the Fuhrer is fascist just because he supports the Vichy government’s right to sovereignty over France?”

        • Skua@kbin.social
          910·
          1 year ago

          Ahh yes I definitely remember when Germany created modern Ukraine by invading Russia in 2021.

          • porcupine@lemmygrad.ml
            117·
            1 year ago

            Believe it or not, history didn’t actually start in 2021, and Nazi collaborators didn’t all suddenly disappear in 1945 after enthusiastically carrying out the holocaust. Many German Nazis went right back to work at NATO, the West German government, and various US intelligence and military projects. The Ukrainian fascist organizations, Stepan Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists among them, that directly participated in the murder of over a million Jews, Poles, and communists operated continuously through the 2014 coup where they overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian government with the backing of the United States. The coup government had been waging continuous open war on Russians living in Luhansk and Donetsk for 8 years before Russia came to their defense at the explicit request of their democratically elected governments.

            Of course, you either already know this and don’t care, or you’re going to choose to ignore it to substitute with some cartoon fantasy about how there was peace in the world until Putin and his orcs arbitrarily decided to blacken the land with their unclean hordes and wipe out the good, clean, pure Men of the West for absolutely no reason and with no strategic objective beyond embodying the metaphysical concept of evil.

            • Skua@kbin.social
              88·
              1 year ago

              Many German Nazis went right back to work at NATO, the West German government, and various US intelligence and military projects.

              Fun fact, they went to the Soviet Union too. Paperclip was very much mirrored by Osoaviakhim. So whatever point you’re trying to make by bringing this up, I’m afraid it’s very much a both sides thing. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make though. None of what you said makes the comparison I was responding to any less ridiculous. Hitler and his party, funnily enough, were not defined as fascists by protecting the sovereignty of Vichy France, not least because they didn’t actually do it.

              some cartoon fantasy about how there was peace in the world until Putin and his orcs arbitrarily decided to blacken the land with their unclean hordes and wipe out the good, clean, pure Men of the West for absolutely no reason and with no strategic objective beyond embodying the metaphysical concept of evil.

              Thanks for at least confirming you’re not operating in good faith. No, I think Putin has a variety of goals here that include securing a more defensible land route to the peninsula that Russia previously stole in 2014 and attempting to place a puppet (or at least friendly) regime in charge. That you’re uncritically buying the justifications of a warmongering dictator is proof positive to me that you based your entire opinion here on “whatever the opposite of America is” as if it’s a playground football game. I don’t need to like how America acts to also not like how Russia acts.

              • porcupine@lemmygrad.ml
                82·
                1 year ago

                you based your entire opinion here on “whatever the opposite of America is”

                Pure projection. I treat Russia as an ordinary liberal democratic state led by ordinary human people with rational self-interested motives rather than a cartoon villain with an army of mindless robots. My refusal to treat them as fundamentally evil, irrational, or inhuman doesn’t suggest that I think they’re “good”, selfless, or beyond criticism. It means I judge them by the same standards I’d use to judge any similar state with a similar political and economic system in similar circumstances.

                I don’t need to like how America acts to also not like how Russia acts.

                If you’re an American as I am, then your taxes funded the 2014 coup of Ukraine, the ongoing war on Donetsk and Luhansk, sabotaging the Minsk agreements, and prohibiting a negotiated end to the ongoing conflict. You’re not some unbiased neutral observer if you’re pretending to claim “both sides bad” while actively funding and voting to maintain the war and block every local attempt at peace. Absent continuous US intervention for over a decade, this war never happens.

                I don’t care where Russia and Ukraine decide to put lines on a map between them. That’s exclusively up to the people that actually live there, and Euro-Americans like me aren’t entitled to an opinion about it. I care that my government stop using money generated by my community’s labor to murder the people that live there.

                • ormr@reddthat.com
                  42·
                  1 year ago

                  I only agree that we shouldn’t view Russia or Russians as fundamentally evil of dehumanize them with language like “orcs”. But really… do you view Russia as a liberal democratic state? I’m sorry but are you out of your mind? And surely they are not led by ordinary people but by a class of oligarchs under the lead of the godfather of this mafia state.

                  Also you say you don’t care about border disputes between countries. You’re wrong that this is up to the people sharing this border. Legally that’s a very ignorant statement as there are very good reasons that the UN member countries are extremely reluctant to accept any changing of borders, especially not by force. International law puts emphasis on stability of borders. Also it makes border conflicts every countries’ business. So yes: Even as a Euro-American you’re very much entitled to have an opinion about it and legally it’s your countries’ duty to have a stance on it. No one is on the sidelines here.

                • Skua@kbin.social
                  56·
                  1 year ago

                  I treat Russia as an ordinary liberal democratic state led by ordinary human people with rational self-interested motives

                  It means I judge them by the same standards I’d use to judge any similar state with a similar political and economic system in similar circumstances.

                  Do you? So let’s say the UK decided to funnel weapons in to Ireland to restart the Troubles and then sent tanks in to annex Donegal. Would you be similarly opposed to arming Ireland against a much larger and better-armed neighbour? After all it’d hugely expand the UK’s exclusive economic zone at sea and significantly reduce the length of the border to defend against Ireland, it seems beneficial for Britain. I don’t know about you, but I’d hope someone would back Ireland up in that situation.

                  If you’re an American as I am

                  I’m not

                  the 2014 coup of Ukraine

                  Good job Ukraine has had two elections since then huh

                  the ongoing war on Donetsk and Luhansk

                  It is interesting how so many of Russia’s neighbours have pro-Russian separatist movements that always seem to have Russian backing

                  prohibiting a negotiated end to the ongoing conflict

                  What leverage do you think Ukraine’s supporters actually have to prevent a peace? They’d stop supplying it weapons? Well you apparently want them to do that anyway. Presumably that’s because you think Ukraine can negotiate peace without being armed enough to fight Russia. In which case these peace-blocking supporters have no leverage with which to block peace.

                  Of course they have even less leverage over Russia, which could end this war tomorrow by literally just fucking going home

                  You’re not some unbiased neutral observer

                  I didn’t claim to be unbiased in the slightest. I am openly pro-Ukraine here. Because I’m generally against countries invading their neighbours and killing hundreds of thousands in order to annex territory, no matter how beneficial it might be to the invader.

                  Absent continuous US intervention for over a decade, this war never happens.

                  This is literally just American exceptionalism for people that don’t like America. Other countries also do things. Russia has a track record of exactly this kind of thing.

            • Ooops@kbin.social
              58·
              1 year ago

              The Ukrainian fascist organizations, Stepan Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists among them, that directly participated in the murder of over a million Jews, Poles, and communists operated continuously through the 2014 coup where they overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian government with the backing of the United States. The coup government had been waging continuous open war on Russians living in Luhansk and Donetsk for 8 years before Russia came to their defense at the explicit request of their democratically elected governments.

              Does writing fiction pays well nowadays?

      • Hyperreality@kbin.social
        1113·
        1 year ago

        Russian propaganda.

        Anti-semitism inspired by thinkers like Dugin and Prokhanov is popular in Russia.

        https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/vladimir-putin-ukraine-attack-antisemitism-denazify

        TLDR: Russian ethnic nationalists, don’t see Jews as the primary victims of the holocaust, they think of Russian Christians as its true victims, and even go so far to argue that Jews orchestrated the holocaust and/or the war. That’s why they don’t see a contradiction in a country led by a Jew being nazi. IRC they also recently blamed Ukraine for instigating an anti-semitic riot in Dagestan. Not that it would matter, because propaganda allows people to engage in double-think.

        As someone who’s pretty left wing, it’s very unfortunate because these fossils (and a younger generation who confuse contrarianism with critical thinking) have often infected left wing parties, ensuring they’ll never have any influence on government and can be easily discredited for even their most sensible solutions. Communists supporting far right ultra-capitalists and often the exact same people who helped accelerate the catastrophic fall of the USSR.

        • Krause [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
          116·
          1 year ago

          and often the exact same people who helped accelerate the catastrophic fall of the USSR

          You mean America and NATO? You know, the guys who actually did that…

          • Hyperreality@kbin.social
            65·
            1 year ago

            No. I mean the robber baron oligarchs who got rich from corruption, stole national industries from ordinary Russians, ensured the USSR bled to death, parked vast sums of ill gotten gains in foreign accounts, and sold their country and countrymen to the highest bidder.

            The ‘elite’ who now run Russia, claiming the fall of the USSR was a great tragedy and pretending to be its last defenders, while minimizing their role in its downfall from the safety of palaces, foreign residences and mansions which would make the Tsars blush at their vulgarity.

            People like Putin, who goes on about how tragic it was that the Soviet Union fell, while wearing a million dollar watch and conveniently forgetting his ties to the oligarchs and Yeltsin.

          • Hyperreality@kbin.social
            41·
            1 year ago

            Correct. I meant to say nazi, as was mentioned in the comment above and the article. I have corrected my comment.

            • zerfuffle@lemmy.ml
              2·
              1 year ago

              Frankly, Nazism is also not an exclusively anti-Jewish construct. They were also strongly opposed to the racial identities of the Roma, Poles, and Russians (and killed millions of them during the Holocaust as well), as well as the political ideology of communists.

              Nazism was anticommunist by ideology and antisemitic by policy. There was a strong (and misguided) belief at the time that Jews were responsible for the Russian communist revolution and that Jewish communists would come to spread communism. There was a strong (and misguided) belief at the time that Slavs (Russians, Poles, …) were communists by nature and would come to spread communism. There was also (misguided) belief at the time that the Roma would benefit from communism at the detriment of everyone else. The first concentration camps were used to imprison and execute communists.

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
        1120·
        1 year ago

        Ukraine lost its sovereignty back in 2014 when a western backed right wing coup overthrew the legitimate democratically elected government. Now, a western sponsored regime is sending hundreds of thousands of people to their deaths in a proxy war US is using to try and weaken Russia. US politicians openly admit this fact now.

    • IjonTichy@kbin.social
      97·
      1 year ago

      I’m sure the parents of the hundreds of thousands of children that were abducted don’t want them back.
      I mean the Ukrainians from the occupied areas are enjoying their stay in Putin’s Filtration camps where they are systematically tortured and raped. If they’re lucky they don’t just “disappear” into a mass grave, they’ll get to enjoy their resettlement to a poor russian oblast. Reeducation camps are great! You’ll get an “education” and don’t even have to take on a student loan.
      Ukrainians just don’t appreciate all the things Putin has done for them. Systematically attacking their energy grid gave them a chance to experience christmas by candlelight. So romantic.
      Why don’t they just surrender? I guess Zelensky must be a Nazi.

      GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS!

      • FuckyWucky [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        125·
        1 year ago

        he doesn’t really need to do that. throwing money at a problem limited by real resources doesn’t solve shit. Russia has the advantage right now, even western media is admitting it.

        Capitalism is funny. When something is limited by the lack of money (say high speed rail), they say there is no money because fiscal deficit limit etc etc even though there is labor and resources available to build the same. When something is limited by lack of resources (say soldiers), they pump unnecessary amounts of money which is bound to leak out.

  • cosecantphi [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1518·
    1 year ago

    So how close to losing and being forced into an unconditional surrender does Ukraine need to be before Europe stops sending aid at their own huge expense?

    • Sowhatever@discuss.tchncs.de
      114·
      1 year ago

      Huge expense? Not one life lost, all infrastructure intact and got rid of mostly 80’s military hardware while getting budget for new stuff and a whole lot of free field testing and marketing for export.

      We are not sending gold bars or euro bills, we’re paying local companies to produce ammo or sending surplus hardware “for the value of $$$” that would otherwise sit in a hangar somewhere.

      This is the cheapest war “Europe” has ever fought, can’t say the same about Ukraine or Russia.

      • LarkinDePark@lemmygrad.ml
        67·
        1 year ago

        The reason they’re trying to fast track EU membership for Ukraine, a country that in normal times would stand zero chance of membership, is so that its debts to the US will become all of the EU’s. This won’t be cheap.

        • IjonTichy@kbin.social
          85·
          1 year ago

          That’s the stupidest take I’ve read in a long time. This is just not how any of it works.

          • LarkinDePark@lemmygrad.ml
            11·
            1 year ago

            Why do you think the EU would want a shithole like Ukraine (even before the Nazi’s ran the place) as a member? Open to your genius take.

    • figaro@lemdro.idEnglish
      77·
      1 year ago

      I think the plan is to not let it get to that point? Ukraine is the front line against Russia. If the front line falls, the front line then becomes Poland, which is just one step away from Germany.

      • statist43@feddit.de
        128·
        1 year ago

        Because nobody needs to support their partners! The only thing that counts is OUR country and OUR freedom !!!

        /s

        • java@beehaw.org
          32·
          1 year ago

          The only thing that counts is OUR country and OUR freedom !!!

          This position is natural, I wouldn’t criticize people for that. What people fail to understand is that “OUR” country and “THEIR” country exist on the same globe. “OUR” country will feel consequences too if Russia doesn’t lose.

          • statist43@feddit.de
            41·
            1 year ago

            “OUR” country will feel consequences too if Russian doesn’t lose

            Thats the point. Beimg nationalist is not completly wrong, because you still live in your country.

            But I a country just looks for itself, it doesnt blend out all the other countries and the problem they have. Our world is interconnected like in no time before, wd cant just shut our eyes and try to be happy.

            And as germany is the biggest economy in Europe, we should be more supportive than economically smaller countries

      • Hexadecimalkink@lemmy.ml
        412·
        1 year ago

        Germany is now running deficits to support a war that’s already been decided. Ukraine is a corrupt country where many weapons given to it find their way onto the international black market. The standard of living in Germany is getting worse. Using deficit spending on a non-productive good like weapons to a foreign country that is corrupt will accelerate Germany’s decline.

        • statist43@feddit.de
          34·
          1 year ago

          So you think its better to dont support our partners, and let autocrats take what they want, bc we have bad money management?

          The standard of living is declining everywhere on the world. Germany is still havimg it really good. We are just nagging, but we have really much. in my opinion we have to help other countries which have it bad.

          • Hexadecimalkink@lemmy.ml
            37·
            1 year ago

            If you’re going to stop Russia from invading Ukraine why aren’t you putting German troops in Ukraine? You’re not helping your partner your killing Ukranians to weaken America’s enemy. Tell me what the difference between Israel and Russia is and what they’re doing to their smaller neighbours is. And then tell me why Germany condemns one atrocity but supports the other. It’s not about supporting a partner and I think you’re being naive or disingeneous if you think so.