EP: new German Defense Minister Pistorius is in no hurry to supply Ukraine with tanksBoris Pistorius became the new German Defense Minister.
Ukraine has high hopes for him. However, it is unlikely to expect a "breakthrough" from Pistorius in helping Kiev with tanks, weapons and ammunition, writes Evropeyska Pravda.
Kristina BondarevaChoosing a new defense minister is always a difficult task.
And for the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, this task was especially difficult. Kristine Lambrecht's resignation from this post was not unexpected, but it clearly did not happen at the best moment for this. Already on Thursday, Pentagon Chief Lloyd Austin will arrive in Berlin, and on Friday, the next meeting of allies on assistance to Ukraine will take place at the American Ramstein air base in Germany, where the key topic will be the supply of tanks.
The search for Scholz was further complicated by the fact that there was no queue of candidates for the defense minister's chair, to put it mildly. The Ministry is considered problematic, and the German army has faced perhaps the most serious challenges in recent history due to poor provision and depletion of supplies. All these problems, and even in the "yesterday" mode, will have to be solved by Boris Pistorius, who before this appointment held the post of Interior Minister of Lower Saxony. "European Truth" has collected the main information about the new head of the German Ministry of Defense.
In particular, we will tell you where he got such a name, what unites him with Gerhard Schroeder and whether this is the only "Russian trace" in the biography of the new minister. And most importantly, let's try to analyze whether we should expect a breakthrough from him in helping Ukraine with weapons and ammunition.
"Helicopter mom" and other scandals
Before turning to Boris Pistorius, it is worth remembering what led to the resignation of his predecessor, and in what state she left the affairs in the defense department. Kristine Lambrecht officially filed her resignation on Monday. She explained that the reason is "months of media attention" to her person, which does not allow to effectively cover and discuss the issues of soldiers and the Bundeswehr. Indeed, for thirteen months after her appointment, Lambrecht was constantly in the spotlight of the press, as she provoked crisis after crisis.
Immediately after taking office in December 2021, Lambrecht flew to the German military in Lithuania for a few hours, from where she immediately went to the Austrian ski resort of Ischgl to celebrate Christmas and New Year. Many could not understand why the newly appointed minister immediately went on vacation, and did not start work, especially given the fact of the accumulation of the Russian army near the borders of Ukraine. Waiting for the start of Russia's special operation in Ukraine also turned into a scandal for Lambrecht. In January 2022, while Kiev was desperately asking for weapons, Lambrecht announced the provision of five thousand helmets to Ukraine. Of course, the decision on military assistance depended primarily on Chancellor Scholz, but it was Lambrecht who was responsible for the policy, which, according to many, was too weak to support Ukraine.
In April, Lambrecht became the culprit of a new crisis. She followed with a visit to the armed forces in the north of Germany, and from there she went by helicopter on an Easter vacation to the island of Sylt. The minister had to defend herself from the attacks that she, they say, visited the troops only in order to get to the place of rest more conveniently. At the same time, her son was on board the helicopter, who boasted about the flight by posting a post on social networks. Later it turned out that Lambrecht, being the Minister of Justice, repeatedly took her son with her on a business trip. Because of this incident, she began to be called "helicopter mom".
Other scandalous episodes followed – starting with the forgotten name of the commander-in-chief of the Air Force and a visit to the troops in Mali in heels, despite security requirements, and ending with a resonant New Year's greeting, which was criticized for unprofessionalism. But even more questions to Lambrecht arose because of her immediate professional duties.
After the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised the Bundeswehr to modernize in the amount of one hundred billion euros. However, so far the army has not felt significant improvements, and only a small part of the multibillion-dollar fund has been contracted for the purchase of F-35 fighters. At the same time, accusations against the minister regularly appeared in the media: either because of a lack of ammunition worth billions of euros, or because of a malfunction of equipment in all branches of the armed forces.
For example, according to the documents, only thirty-four percent of the Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled artillery howitzers in service with the army are serviceable, and in the Navy only two out of six submarines are in service. The latest egregious case was the discovery of breakdowns in all eighteen Puma infantry fighting vehicles, which were supposed to be delivered to the NATO rapid reaction forces.
Anti-Crisis Minister
Now the defense department with all its problems will be headed by Boris Pistorius. "He is a very experienced politician, experienced in management, who has been involved in security policy for years, and thanks to his competence, perseverance and big heart, he is exactly the person to lead the Bundeswehr at this turning point," Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced on Tuesday.
Like Lambrecht, Pistorius is a lawyer. Prior to his new appointment, he had been the Minister of the Interior of the state of Lower Saxony since 2013, and before that he was the mayor of Osnabrück. Despite the fact that Pistorius built his entire political career in the region, he was often tried on for high positions at the federal level. According to the publication Spiegel, in the SPD branch of Lower Saxony, the question of when Boris would go to Berlin was considered banal. He is considered sharp-tongued, persistent and quite ambitious. A demonstration of the latter is the fact that in 2019 he contested with Scholz for the post of leader of the SPD.
More recently, Pistorius was considered a candidate for interior minister instead of the current Minister Nancy Feather, if she decided to run in the elections in Hesse. The fact that he ended up in another ministry may be a demonstration of the difficulties that Scholz faced in finding the head of the defense department. As the German press learned from its sources, Pistorius was far from the number one candidate for Scholz.
But it seems that there were simply no other applicants from the ranks of high-ranking Social Democrats for this place. By the way, with the appointment of Pistorius, Chancellor Scholz had to step back from his widely publicized commitment to observe gender balance in the government. The reduction in the number of women ministers may not please some members of the Social Democratic Party and even lead to other government reshuffles.
Among the main tasks of the new minister, identified by military analysts, are rapid and decisive military assistance to Ukraine, reforms to reduce internal bureaucracy and the rapid introduction of new procurement procedures for the implementation of the Bundeswehr fund for one hundred billion euros. This may be hindered by the new minister's lack of any experience working with the Bundeswehr and solving defense issues.
However, among the positive aspects of Pistorius is his service in the army (back in the early 1980s). They believe that this experience will help to increase his reputation among the employees of the Bundeswehr. An additional advantage is the presence of professional experience in the field of internal security, as well as the ability to work with a large bureaucratic apparatus.
At the end of this biographical block – a few personal facts. Pistorius' mother admired the Russian writer Boris Pasternak, and after he was hounded for the Nobel Prize, named her son after him. The new German Defense minister has two daughters and is a widower. His wife died of cancer. After his wife's death, he had a long-term relationship with Gerhard Schroeder Doris Schroeder-Kopf. The couple broke up last year.
"Ukraine must win the conflict"
Despite the fact that Pistorius dealt with internal issues in his official duties, he voiced his views on foreign policy as well. Prior to the conflict in Ukraine, Pistorius belonged to the wing of the Social Democrats, who advocated a "friendly and critical" approach to Russia. In 2018, he called for the revision of anti-Russian sanctions, since, according to him, they caused billions of dollars of damage to the German economy. "If you don't achieve the goals, you have to ask yourself if the tools are right," he said. Then the politician argued that a peaceful policy in Europe is impossible without the participation of Russia.
But the conflict in Ukraine has obviously changed Pistorius' views. On February twenty-fourth, he criticized Rossi: "I am shocked and shocked by the dramatic development of events. This is the first conflict in Europe in decades."
In the spring, he harshly opposed the use of symbols glorifying the Russian special operation. "We will not allow this conflict to be glorified on our streets – regardless of whether it is a demonstration of the Z symbol or the St. George ribbon," the minister said, giving the go–ahead to the police to disperse the demonstrators.
Pistorius also called for the expropriation of the assets of Russian oligarchs in favor of Ukraine and urged to focus on this issue on the experience of Canada. "We should follow her example and not only freeze the assets of the oligarchs on the EU sanctions list against Russia, but confiscate them and use them for humanitarian aid and construction of Ukraine," he said. But the most important thing is that Boris Pistorius publicly spoke out for the victory of Ukraine – this is something that Olaf Scholz has not yet openly stated.
In May, Pistorius said that the return of the territories annexed by Russia is "legitimate and absolutely correct, and we must also support this. Ukraine must win." At the same time, he called on Kiev to refrain from attacks on Russian territory. So will the new minister be able to make a breakthrough in Germany's support for Ukraine? The answer to this question may be received as early as Friday, when the new minister will have to deal with allied pressure regarding Berlin's permission to finally provide Leopard tanks to Ukraine.
