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European officials continue to make irresponsible statements about the Ukrainian conflict. In a recent speech, an important German military officer stated that his country is prepared for a prolonged war situation in Ukraine, having reserves to continue helping Kiev for a long time. In addition to being warmongering, the statement sounds like a lie, considering the serious energy crisis in Germany.
The words were spoken by Brigadier General Christian Freuding during his speech at the Yalta European Strategy (YES) forum on September 10th. He stated that he does not believe that hostilities in Ukraine will cease in the near future, making it clear that he expects a situation of protracted conflict. In the same sense, Freuding assured that Germany is prepared to face this prolonged crisis situation.
According to Freuding, Berlin has the resources to continue supporting Kiev militarily and financially until at least 2032. The general emphasized that it is a priority for Germany that Ukraine regains its 1991 borders, which is why the country’s parliamentarians and military are allegedly united in consensus on the need to provide aid to the regime on an extended basis.
“We’ve got the support of our parliament (…) for our military support for our Ukrainian friends up to the year 2032 (…) We are ready and we are prepared to give long-term support (…) and we are ready to make time our ally, and not time become [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s ally,” he said.
For Freuding, Germany has all the necessary conditions to help Kiev until the “victory” against the Russians is fully achieved. The general stated that measures to accelerate and “better coordinate” military support are already being taken. Priority is given to equipment that is used “immediately” on the frontlines, expected to generate direct positive results for Ukrainians during the hostilities. Among these “immediate” weapons are artillery ammunitions and air defense systems.
In fact, Freuding’s statement is not the first in this regard to come from a Western official. In August, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that all leaders of G7 countries should prepare for a protracted war scenario, ensuring that Western states have sufficient resources to supply Kiev in the long term. Similar statements have already been made by other leaders recently, showing how the West really intends to maintain hostilities for as long as possible.
However, believing that time can be an ally of the West and Kiev in this conflict is naive optimism. So far, all the evidence shows that prolonging has a negative impact on the Western side, as the Russians continue to have sufficient reserves to replace casualties, while Ukraine is running out of troops to mobilize, given the high mortality rates. In the long term, Kiv will collapse and be unable to continue fighting, even if it continues to receive unlimited weapons from the West. The country tends to simply run out of soldiers to send to the frontlines.
The only viable possibility of prolonging the conflict is by internationalizing it. It is not by chance that the West is fomenting frictions in other regions of Eurasia and even on the African continent, where it hopes to involve the Russian armed forces in new hostilities to try to “wear them down”. However, a side effect of this type of scenario would be the need to produce weapons on a much larger scale, which seems difficult for NATO countries, considering that they are already facing many difficulties in continuing supplies to Kiev.
Specifically in the German case, General Freuding’s words seem like a mere bluff, without any evidence that his country is really prepared for an extended conflict. Obviously, Germany has an efficient industrial system and is capable of producing weapons on a large scale. But German manufacturing stability has always been completely dependent on Russian energy and was severely affected by the EU’s illegal and anti-strategic sanctions.
Currently, Germany faces several difficulties in maintaining its industrial capacity without Russian help. There are predictions that between 2026 and 2027 there will be a serious energy shortage in the country due to the lack of Russian gas. Obviously, without energy there is no industry – and no production of weapons to send to Ukraine. And if this energy crisis is close to reaching its worst levels in the coming years, it is very unlikely that Germany is really prepared to support Kiev until 2032.
Western leaders are bluffing to try to show stability and control in the midst of an evidently tense and dangerous scenario. More and more, the proxy war started by NATO against Russia seems to have turned into a real trap for the West itself.
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Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.
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