Reflected in polls where for example, around 20% of Germans think the West is supplying too much military aid to Ukraine.
The AfD and Linke are extremists on the left and right; and their opinions are no different from those put forward by their parallels in the UK, whether dressed up in the "just talk" gibberish of the likes of Corbyn or more explicit support for Putin. Nor is that figure of 20% particular different
to the UK (where 18% oppose both sending money for weapons and weapons themselves). The fact is that the overwhelming majority of the German public back more support for Ukraine, and various widely reported but small scale pro-Russian protests have been met with widespread disgust.
Germany has long standing laws, conventions, and positions regarding getting involved in foreign wars - do I really need to explain why that might be? - which has led to a general reluctance to take any kind of leading role in military support for Ukraine. This has been worsened by the fact that the government is a three way coalition that must agree the position between the SDP, the Greens, and the FDP. The SDP is led by the character of Chancellor Scholz - who was essentially elected because he was the most boring, normal, risk-adverse candidate - and a left wing of the party that has historically sought closer relations with "communist" Russia, as well as a streak of naive pacifism. The Greens are a far more sensible and pragmatic bunch than the British Green party but are still to the left of the SDP and also inclined to naive anti-war positions. The FDP meanwhile are balls-to-the-wall
laissez faire nutters (think the Cleggian wing of the Lib Dems) and much more concerned about anything that hurts businesses and profits than the SDP or the Greens, so make getting sanctions agreed much more difficult.
None-the-less, the German government overturned decades of policy within weeks and started sending weapons into an active warzone, and
committed large sums of money to supporting Ukraine in short order. Those sums aren't the largest in percentage terms, but they're pretty big by comparison with the other large European countries (Poland aside) and go alongside the co-ordinated EU response.
Germany is also less well placed to provide direct support than one might imagine. Following the fall of the Iron Curtain, Germany rapidly downscaled its military and the Bundeswehr (German military) is a substantially less capable force than that of the UK or France, as well as being one which is aggressively configured specifically to defend Germany rather than get involved in overseas conflicts. One of the first things the coalition agreed on was a rapid U-turn on this approach, and over the next decade the Bundeswehr is likely to return to being Europe's strongest military. All this means that Germany has no great stockpiles of equipment it can send without critically weakening its own forces, and also that any acquisition of new equipment for Ukraine is now competing with Germany acquiring that equipment for its own use.
Maybe I'm being slightly hyperbolic describing this sort of thing as pro-russia (although I don't think it's necessarily inaccurate looking at what some of the AfD politicians have been up to,for example...), but in effect it supports and enables Russia so might as well be.
Total rubbish. Like many others I'd like Germany to be doing more to support Ukraine but arguing that its level of support for Ukraine "supports and enables" Russia is total and utter horse leavings. Germany is doing more than many other nations (as an aside, why is it that France isn't getting it in the neck more, it's not only sending less support but is also better placed to send support).
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www.reuters.com
It really is pitiful how some people hold the current disarray the EU is in as the doyen of governance.
