Scholz says putin has been preparing attack on Ukraine for two years
Former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is convinced that vladimir putin made the final decision to launch a full-scale invasion two years before February 2022. He said this in Berlin during the presentation of the book "Das Versagen" ("The Failure"), dedicated to the mistakes of German policy towards russia, reports Die Welt.
According to the politician, the kremlin leader deliberately chose the path of aggression, despite the possibility of resolving political issues through diplomacy
"Today, I am firmly convinced that Putin planned his attack two years before, and very little could have stopped him from doing so. All this could have been achieved without war. This means that he wanted a war," Scholz emphasized.
He also defended his policy of supplying arms to Kyiv, which has been heavily criticized. He emphasized that the pace and volume of aid depended on complex logistics and the need to coordinate with partners. The politician noted that Berlin was forced to act cautiously, defining the "limits of what is acceptable" in practice to take into account moscow's possible reaction.
"We always had to weigh whether Germany should act in coordination with its partners and how Russia would react. It was also a matter of 'testing how far we could go,'" Scholz said.
Scholz has been criticized for seeking to support Ukraine, but in a way that would "not provoke" russia. This led to constant delays with heavy weapons (Leopard tanks took months to arrive) and a categorical refusal to deliver long-range Taurus missiles.
As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had a phone conversation with russian dictator vladimir putin.
He also said that he believes that the debate about the participation of Bundeswehr soldiers in a possible peacekeeping mission in Ukraine and the sending of European troops to the country in the war is premature, but at the same time, that an agreement to end the war in Ukraine should not be imposed on the Ukrainian side.