Berlin has chosen to stand by Kyiv. A drone nearly struck Zelensky’s plane

“No one has ever threatened Russia,” said the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, yesterday in Parliament – neither NATO, nor the European Union, nor Germany: “Ladies and gentlemen,” Merz continued, “the only thing threatening Russia and Vladimir Putin is the radiance of democracy. Ukraine was on the path to joining the European democratic family, and this is precisely the real danger to Putin’s Russian regime”, and you in the AfD know this only too well, said the Chancellor, yet you continue to support this regime. The AfD leader, Alice Weidel, praised the United States’ “attempt to put an end to the murderous war in Ukraine”, whilst the German government is “burning its last remaining bridges” by intensifying “the propaganda war” and the confrontation with Russia: it is doing so, said Weidel, to distract Germans from its failures, whilst her colleague at the helm of the AfD, Tino Chrupalla, had already said yesterday that sanctions against Russia are pointless, reiterating that no weapons should even be sent to support the Ukrainian defence, whilst Volodymyr Zelensky’s plane was nearly hit by a drone whilst he was in Moldova.

Merz may well be at an all-time low in terms of credibility and support, under siege from the far right, amidst a structural crisis in the country, but Europe, Ukraine and that part of the world (which, alas, no longer includes Trump’s America) that knows the Kremlin wants neither peace nor to stop at Ukraine must celebrate the fact that the German Chancellor continues to stay the course on an issue that divides the European electorate. She did so last week when she explicitly denounced Russian involvement in the failed attack at Leipzig Airport, as well as in the ongoing acts of sabotage against Germany’s electricity and rail networks, and she did so by deciding to send the Patriot interceptors from her arsenal to Kyiv, which can therefore be delivered at short notice.

Opening the latest meeting of the contact group on Ukraine, the German Defence Minister, the Social Democrat Boris Pistorius, announced the “urgent” supply of Patriot PAC-2 interceptors and called on other European countries to review their arsenals and assess the possibility of doing the same before winter. “I know it is not easy to strike a balance between your own security needs and the support that Ukraine urgently requires,” said Pistorius. “But please, if you are in any doubt, make a choice in favour of Kyiv.” Germany will also increase supplies of AIM-9 missiles, which are also part of the German arsenal. The aim is to help Ukraine immediately, given that Russia is attacking with greater frequency and brutality, taking advantage of the absence of Ukrainian defences following the American withdrawal, and using the elusive jet drones, now dubbed ‘weapons of horror’. Other countries have also committed to supplying arms, funding and joint production agreements (the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden), but it is Germany that has taken the most concrete step, drawing on its own arsenal as winter approaches.

In his telephone conversation with Donald Trump on Tuesday, Putin said he had no intention of attacking Europe, denouncing European hysteria: Even in the weeks leading up to the large-scale invasion of Ukraine – when it was the Americans who were being ‘hysterical’, backed by unequivocal intelligence evidence (today, Americans and Russians are celebrating the AfD’s successes together, and Merz and Trump are not speaking on the phone) – the Russian president kept repeating that he had no intention of invading the neighbouring country.