'A new reality.' German Chancellor Olaf Scholz makes it clear that Russia's invasion of Ukraine led his country to abandon its long-held refusal to export arms to conflicts. Germany is now sending anti-tank weapons and surface-to-air missiles to Ukraine.
, including 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 “Stinger” surface-to-air missiles, directly to Ukraine. It also committed to targeted bans on Russian banks from the SWIFT global financial system, which German leaders had expressed reluctance to do.
The country was a favorite target of former U.S. President Donald Trump for its failure to spend 2 percent of its GDP on defense, a target for NATO members. According to NATO figures, Berlin spent around 1.53 percent of GDP in 2021, or almost $65 billion. Its budget has grown annually for several years.
NATO countries slashed their military budgets in the 1990s after the Cold War, but they were spurred back into action when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. That year, the allies pledged to halt the cuts and move toward spending 2 percent of GDP by 2024.“We cannot leave Ukraine defenseless against the aggressor who is bringing death and devastation to this country,” Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, said Sunday.