Germany needs to decide to transfer Leopard tanks to Ukraine's Armed Forces for real support of Ukraine at military level - MEP von Cramon

Ms. von Cramon. On October 10, we saw another change in the nature of the Russian war in Ukraine. Russia attacked us with rockets and this was the most massive attack since the beginning of the war in February this year. Will the European Union somehow react to this? If so, what would  this reaction look like?  

I think this was a well-planned strategy that did not come overnight, and obviously Putin is severely losing militarily on the battleground.  It looks as if the liberation of territories goes much more successfully than anyone has expected at least outside of Ukraine so far. He is in a very tense situation domestically in particular. So the only way to defeat Ukraine before the winter is of course to tackle and attack the civilian infrastructure, heating systems and all logistics which are necessary to survive the winter.  What does the EU do?I think that we do another sanction package. But at the moment of course we are still debating the so-called gas price cap. This is not an easy debate. There are very challenging questions in terms of how do you do this procedure wise? How do you really purchase gas internationally? So in that question I do not see that there is a consent so far. Last night the heads of states debated that very intensively. In Brussels there will be a follow-up of the meeting of the energy ministers in Luxembourg next Tuesday and I guess there will be another summit regarding this question. What I think we have been lobbying for quite some time is more military support. Air defense, tanks, different weapons, everything which helps Ukraine to protect civilians, to protect their own citizens, to protect the cities,  to protect the house for energy that is now really urgent and I hope that we can react a bit swifter than in the past.

Since you started talking about the weapons for Ukraine, in one of your interviews you talked about supporting Ukraine and I will quote what you said, “Weapons and money nothing else matters today”. The Ukrainian Authority also shares this. Does everyone in the European Union understand and share this?

I think there is a lot of aid. There's a lot of different varieties, I mean Poland still has 2.5 million IDPs from Ukraine and more and more people are coming from some of the regions in the East. Some people of course go back. They also need support, because they need a decentralized heating system. I have met a group of counselors from the Kharkiv city council from the oblast level. They work on a plan on how they can survive the winter. They have a lot of homeless people. And of course we try to activate the assistance on different levels. Is this enough? well of course not, I mean people still are suffering. Military support is not on the ground where it is needed. Of course

Ukraine I can imagine is lacking the money which is needed 5 billion euro per month to run the state. Less EU bilateral contracts, individual member states contribute to a large extent to let Ukraine hopefully win the war. But, and this is not the end of the story, this war is not over. Ukraine has not won this war. This is not a short term sprint, this is a long-term marathon and we have to make sure we can activate support, aid, assistance, financial contributions also for the next year, after the winter. And this is important not just to support Ukraine at the moment but also for the reconstruction and for the military support during the winter.

Yes you are right. Unfortunately, this is a long time marathon and thank you very much for the support and help during this marathon. Let's go back a little bit to where we started, to the shelling of the Ukrainian citizens, Ukrainian infrastructure. immediately after that chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholtz, convinced the G7 group meeting, and this was done at the request of President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi. Do you think world leaders will be able to somehow press Putin or at least influence him not to do what he is doing right now?

I think there are some indications that Putin is really politically isolated. We have seen the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in summer. We have seen another so-called Summit in Astana recently, and even from his best dictator friends, such as Tokayev, Rahman and others he has not got any backing. He has not had the support financially or morally or politically that he expected.  So on the contrary, they were criticizing Putin openly in front of live cameras. That would have never happened half a year ago or eight months ago. 

Also Xi Jinping I think is not happy with the entire situation. We have seen the vote in the U.N General Assembly that was amazing how much support Ukraine had there. 144 votes in favor of the resolution condemning the annexation of the new oblasts of Ukraine and so on and so forth. So I think what we need to achieve is getting the support not only from us Europeans but also make sure that this disinfo, the hybrid war of Russia debunked in those regions which are much more far away. I talked last night to some human rights activists at an Alternative Security Conference with people from the Middle East, from Africa and Asia. They have no clue what's going on and why we have changed our security paradigma. And we need to explain to them, we have to invest in Africa. I've spoken to some of your fellow citizens, they are now going to travel to Africa explaining in Nigeria, in Sudan, in Ghana in different states what's going on, and what is the war all about. They just receive mainly this Russian disinfo, and we need to align with them and  support them. They have very many vulnerable groups. People are starving, they are affected by the hunger crisis. We have to make sure we get them all on our side and then it is clear that Putin cannot win the war, he is completely isolated. But this is a lot of work, and we need to stay together in Europe, in the European Union for this. Will this be possible? Let's wait and see, let's work together, let's try to do our best. But I see a lot of actions have taken place in the course of support for Ukraine. He cannot win the war in Ukraine.  

He will not win it, because we have our army and we have your help and support,  thank you for this. Let's talk about Putin's threats to use nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Do you personally think he is serious?

Putin's style is to destabilize our societies. He knows exactly what recipes will work. He knows how to get our uh let's say especially our German Society, and people react to this nuclear threat. Whether this is serious, we will see. Should we listen and step back? Oh never ever, and we have to make sure that, of course we observe and witness the situation in Ukraine very carefully, that we are not deterred by his words and really make sure that the potential consequences for Putin for Russia will be severe and significant and would destroy not just him but a lot of his allies in Russia. This is I guess what KP, a chair of the Republic of People's Republic of China has told Putin as well. I think there's a red line and the red line is definitely  the use of nuclear threat, use of tactical nuclear bombs against Ukraine. I'm pretty sure that this is a line he will not overstep, but of course he's playing with this and he has this as his last resort.  Still I rather doubt that he will use it against Ukraine, or against any other country.

Miss von Cranom and let's talk a little bit about another threat coming from Russia and I mean the natural gas threat. Bloomberg recently wrote that Germany has no plan B to deal with the Russian energy threat. So my question is as follows: how is Germany overcoming this energy crisis, and how will it overcome it in future?

Russia doesn't  provide us with gas anymore, so we are already completely independent. Therefore, the energy price crisis is so severe and obvious. That's why industry is suffering. That's why we try to buy a lot of cubic meters from other autocrats which obviously is also a moral dilemma for us. Not trading with Russia is one thing, but getting the gas from Azerbaijan, Qatar and Algeria is also not too much better. So for now, we have to substitute part of our gas of course with fossil gas from other suppliers. In the long run we would like to substitute this with hydrogen. The chancellor together with our Minister for energy, Robert Habeck, traveled together to Canada to sign a treaty with the Canadians to go for wind power plants, and then transferring this to hydrogen, bringing this over to Europe. That is of course a good project but it will take time. Development, planning, technology as such is not on an upscale level which can be used immediately. We also need to find more potential energy saving measures, I mean even we are better here, maybe than you are in Ukraine, but nevertheless, we use energy. This can be done on an individual level but not only. We have to lay out and we have done so, a broader program for energy saving measures, and this needs to be implemented. One thing is having it as a law and having it voted on and ratified, and the next step is to implement that. We are lacking a lot of labor force and material for this. So many things are actually with a lot of backing from Berlin, with a lot of political will from our Ministries. But in the end, within the operational phase, we cannot deliver and it's not in our hand. So we are really tackling the crisis doing our best, also on the European level. On the European level, some states have taken better

precautionary measures before the war, and they are not running into this energy poverty, into this huge delta which needs to be substituted now from Russia, but nevertheless all over Europe prices are increasing, supplies are scarce and demands are  much too high. We also probably need to provide gas and energy to Ukraine. I've spoken to people from Moldova, who are terribly affected by this energy crisis, they are dependent 100% from Russia. Still they don't know how they're going to survive the winter. So if you look around it's not just about Berlin, it's not just about Germany, it is really about Europe and our closer neighborhood.

Miss von Cramon, I have to ask you the following question. In Ukraine Germany is often accused of not giving us enough weapons to fight against Russian aggressions. How fair do you think these accusations are?

Partly yes. I think that at one point we have to decide whether we will give Western technology including the Leopard tanks to Ukraine. So far there was not an official request, but I hope that the Federal Security Council, in case there would be an official request, would give green light. At the moment we have 2192 Leopard tanks all over Europe in 13 different states and none of the states have asked here at the government level whether they get the permission to export that. So far it's always this circular deal with different member states and then they deliver the old weapons, so what happened now with Slovakia what will happen now with Greece and other states. I think to really support Ukraine on a military level we need to take this decision on the Leopard tanks as soon as possible, as this could be a game changer together with other systems, but I wish the chancellor and his consultants and his advisor would have a different stand on that. We are pushing hard. We see that Ukraine can use that Ukraine is technologically advanced enough to deal with these weapons, but for the time being it is still not clear when those weapons might be exported to Ukraine.  

Second point on the air defense system, I think Germany would and will export more, that is more a question of availability. Many of those systems are not in stock, we simply don't have them, they are just currently being produced and then they will be transferred to Ukraine.

Thank you. I hope it will be as soon as possible. Miss von Cramon, at the end of September Ukraine submitted an application for accelerated accession to NATO. How do you assess Ukraine's chances to join the North Atlantic Council?

It's hard for me to assume. I think we need to make sure that Ukraine receives real valuable security guarantees whether this is NATO membership or individual security guarantees from certain member states of the EU and NATO. I don't know, I think that requires a broader discourse and  a broader discussion. For example, there was a paper written by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former General Secretary of NATO together with Andrii Yermak,  the head of the presidential office. I think those  inputs and debates need to be started also here in Berlin. Besides, we need to explain to our citizens what does it mean if Ukraine becomes a member of this defense Alliance, and there are a lot of people who are either in favor or rather skeptical. But I think we should open the space for the debate on this question and this is still a little bit lagging behind.

And my last question to you for today, Ms von Cramon. Ukraine became a candidate for European Union membership in June. How should we as a country build our diplomacy, both externally and internally, not to remain a candidate for many years?

We have to definitely manage the expectations everywhere. I think the window of opportunity is there. I saw that my colleagues in Verkhovna Rada but also countrywide are really working extremely disciplined on all the questions which the EU Commission has commissioned and submitted to the government of Ukraine. I think this is good and it is really a serious signal and proof that Ukraine wants to join the EU, that they take all the measures which are needed. But what then? We will see in the first progress report probably at the beginning of next year, in March-April. What the next phase is, what the next steps are. Whether this would be about the domestic market, something, for example, including roaming and other access. What would be important for your citizens. What would be important for Ukrainians or whether this is more the political deepening of the relationship and so on and so forth. This will be extremely difficult to say, but of course we from the European Parliament are very much in favor. We will help our colleagues in Verkhovna Rada and the other institutions to make sure that if they have questions, if they need  support on some particular points, we will be there and we will help them to lobby for their case in the European Union.