Since his trip to Ukraine, Anton Hofreiter (52, Greens) has been calling for heavy weapons for Ukraine more loudly than almost any other politician.
Now he is demanding not only to implement the Bundestag resolution on heavy weapons “very quickly”, but also to deliver the promised Cheetah tanks as well as Marder infantry fighting vehicles and Leopard 1. He also admits that his refusal to upgrade the Bundeswehr was a mistake!
At BILD Live, Hofreiter said on Friday morning that the arguments AGAINST the delivery of Leopard 1 and Mardern would not work: “The counter-argument that the Bundeswehr needs them themselves does not apply here because the material is that of the industry.”
“The further argument that the Ukrainian soldiers could not handle the material”, the soldiers would find “insulting”: “Because the people in Ukraine rightly say that our military has been fighting heroically against the Russian army for weeks, they know very well probably how to handle weapons.”
► Regarding the planned upgrade of the Bundeswehr, which the Greens had also resisted for a long time, Hofreiter said: “You made mistakes in the past, I made mistakes there too. I assessed things differently. I also mistakenly thought it was easier to negotiate with Putin.” German politicians should have “listened more to the Eastern Europeans” – who have long warned of the threat from Russia.
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Disarmament and diplomacy must also be given “a chance” in the future: “I can only see that this is not possible with an imperial dictator like Putin if you don’t first make it clear to him that his imperial plans of attack will lead to failure.”
Hofreiter on Putin: “We see that he is a war criminal and uses these war crimes consciously to intimidate people.”
Germany should do even more to help Ukraine: When it comes to an energy embargo or arms deliveries, Germany shouldn’t be “at the last”: “We have high hopes from all over Europe towards Germany and they say: You have to do more there!”
