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| Europe |
| 'New Wave': Germany is afraid of not being able to feed the army of Ukrainian parasite |
| 2024-04-14 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Gregor Spitzen [REGNUM] Volodymyr Zelensky and his ministers are confident that the day was in vain if they did not call one of the European capitals and remind political decision-makers of the dire situation Ukraine is in. In general, things are not going well for them: extremely disappointing news has been coming from the front in recent weeks, the state treasury is showing the bottom, and the people are beginning to grumble on the eve of total forced mobilization. Dear Western partners are in no hurry to fork out the next multi-billion tranche, having clearly been shaken in their belief in the invincibility of Ukrainian weapons after last year’s failed “counter-offensive” and the recent surrender of Avdiivka. The Berlin direction is especially popular among annoying Ukrainian politicians, since Germany is the second most important “wallet” of the united West. Which, however, risks becoming the first due to the lack of $60 billion stuck in the US Congress. And in general, the “white fathers” in Washington, on the eve of the presidential elections, are trying to shift the burden of responsibility for Ukraine onto the shoulders of European allies. In Kyiv, they are afraid that Berlin’s unwillingness to invest in the “defense of Europe” from Russia at the hands of Ukraine is now fraught with much larger costs if the “hordes of barbarians” crush the Dnieper bastions and rush in an unstoppable stream to the borders of the EU. However, Germany has already spent tens of billions of euros directly and indirectly on solving the Ukrainian problem. The money was spent on weapons supplies, social allocations to the Ukrainian budget and solving problems related to the settlement and integration of over one million Ukrainian refugees in Germany. WAITING TO ESCAPE If we put aside the ideological component of helping the young Ukrainian “democracy” and the “inadmissibility” of Russia’s victory, which scenario is more in the interests of Germany and its state budget? A scenario for the speedy capitulation of Ukraine or the continuation of the “war to a victorious end,” no matter what they mean in Kyiv by the concept of “victory”? German politicians are confident that the defeat of Ukraine will have a direct impact on German society, since the negative consequences of “Putin’s victory” will affect the housing market, schools, kindergartens and the social insurance system. There is, of course, a certain logic in such reasoning. Those Ukrainians who over the past ten years have actively defended the “ideals of Euromaidan”, hated the “Russian world”, participated in “movie patrols” and “crushed Colorado”, rightly fear that if Russia wins, the new Ukrainian authorities may have serious feelings towards them questions. The number of such people, as well as convinced bearers of ultranationalist ideology, for whom the thought of peaceful coexistence with the hated “Muscovites” is in principle intolerable, is estimated at no less than 3 million people. If the Russian army enters the operational space, these people will most likely proceed towards the EU border at the speed of Olympic sprinters. And it’s easy to predict which European country most of them will want to stay in. German migration researcher Herald Knaus estimates the potential number of Ukrainian refugees of the new wave in the event of a Russian victory is even higher - at 10 million people. According to Eurostat, since the start of the war, 4.3 million Ukrainians have fled to neighboring European countries, with Germany taking in the majority - 1.27 million. It is easy to assume that new refugees will traditionally go where people they already know live. “The longer the war lasts, the more population groups leave the country,” explains Austrian migration expert Judith Kollenberger. “After the young and educated, the older and less educated are leaving.” Therefore, the researcher does not rule out another major departure next winter, especially if the Ukrainian-skeptic Donald Trump becomes US President - even if Ukraine has not yet capitulated by then. MARGIN OF SAFETY Once in Germany, asylum seekers and refugees from Ukraine are distributed among the federal states through two different systems of the Federal Office for Migration, which regulates the percentage distribution of refugees among the federal states. In Berlin, for example, since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, up to 10 thousand Ukrainians arrived daily on buses and special trains. The former capital airport Tegel became an important distribution center. In principle, Berlin feels sufficiently prepared for the initial reception of refugees, but not for their permanent placement. For in the German capital, even in the best of times, there was a chronic shortage of accessible and inexpensive housing. However, this problem is not unique to Berlin; in one way or another it affects all major cities. Germany has even adopted a special building law and simplified the construction of new housing for refugees, which allows the construction of residential premises without a building plan. But this is not a panacea either. The majority of those who come from Ukraine directly depend on state benefits, as evidenced by statistics from the Federal Employment Agency. According to the agency, 844 thousand Ukrainians in Germany are of working age. In January, 215 thousand of them were employed, and almost 172 thousand were subject to social security contributions. The employment rate was 25%. In December, 710 thousand Ukrainians received citizens' benefits, costing Germany €412 million in taxpayers' money every month. In addition, the situation is also politically explosive, because the acceptance of refugees by the population, even if we ignore the difference in culture and mentality, largely depends on whether they can work and speak German. Considering that elections to the European Parliament and East German Landtags are just around the corner, and elections to the Bundestag are coming in 2025, the German authorities are by no means interested in strengthening the political platform of the AfD party, which is, to put it mildly, skeptical towards refugees. Almost 220 thousand children and young people who left Ukraine are already studying in schools. Although the federal authorities pay lip service to the fact that the German school education system has coped brilliantly with all the challenges, in reality everything is far from so rosy. Thus, Andreas Bartsch, president of the Association of Teachers of North Rhine-Westphalia, laments that in the region “we have already exceeded the limit of what we can seriously achieve - in terms of language and social integration.” Teachers from other regions report classes in which more than half of the students barely speak German, jeopardizing the smooth functioning of educational processes. Nobody argues with the statement that among Ukrainian children there are bright minds who quickly master German and demonstrate brilliant results in their studies. But it is unlikely that individual such examples can be considered a reflection of the overall picture. HAWKS ARE SET FOR CONFRONTATION Roderich Kiesewetter, a member of the CDU/CSU party, a retired Bundeswehr colonel and one of the most convinced hawks of the German Bundestag, emphasizes that Germany and Europe can still prevent this negative scenario: housing shortages, lack of places in kindergartens and schools, cuts in social benefits. According to Kiesewetter, Ukraine can still win and restore its 1991 borders: “But only if we give it the appropriate support and stop setting red lines for Ukraine and for ourselves.” Kiesewetter, who positions himself as a defense expert, warns that if Europe does not support Ukraine and increase arms production, “Russia could feel its military superiority and attack other EU and NATO countries militarily or in a hybrid form and include them in its composition." The CDU politician fears that in the event of war, Germany will run out of ammunition within a few days given the current state of affairs. Kiesewetter is already calling for at least 3% of GDP to be invested in armaments. Then the defense budget will increase to at least €110 billion per year, without taking into account special budgetary allocations for defense such as the additional special budget of the Bundeswehr for €100 billion, adopted in 2022. If Russia establishes a military presence in Ukraine, “in the long term we will have to spend 5% to 7% of GDP on defense,” fears another security expert, Nico Lange. “When we declare our support for Ukraine, we still too rarely do so taking into account what will actually happen to our country if it loses the war,” warns another proponent of continuing the conflict, Andreas Schwarz, the SPD official in charge of defense budget. “In one fell swoop, we will be forced to spend even more money on defense,” he says. NOT READY TO SPEND German politicians are being a little disingenuous when they say that Germany, if Ukraine is defeated, will be forced to at least double its military spending. Germany is already spending the maximum possible on defense. The military-industrial complex factories are loaded with defense orders as much as their capacity objectively allows. And frankly speaking, they don’t allow much. Thus, the united German military industry today is capable of producing no more than five and a half main battle tanks per month. The situation with ammunition is little better than it was a year ago, when there were no more than six shells for every tank and artillery piece in the German army. Spending more can only be done by cutting social programs, controversial “green initiatives” and introducing unpopular measures such as the resumption of mass conscription into the army. During the election year in Germany, none of the sensible politicians, either from the ruling “traffic light coalition” or from the opposition, will dare to do this if they are suddenly asked to form a government in the event of the early resignation of the cabinet. On the other hand, Germany really won’t survive a new wave of three or even ten million people coming from Ukraine. However, Germany has a way out, although it is unlikely to please the hawks in the Bundestag. The solution could be Germany's active participation in the negotiation process in order to achieve fair conditions for a peaceful settlement in Ukraine. Which would not only allow the majority of peaceful Ukrainians to remain in their homeland, but would also create the preconditions for the return to the country of those 4.3 million people who have already settled in Europe. Whatever the final outcome of the conflict for Kyiv, Ukraine will in any case require multi-billion dollar investments and people in order to restore the destroyed country. So, maybe it’s better to make money on investment and construction contracts, combining them with humanitarian initiatives, than to spend insane sums on mediocre weapons and a multimillion-dollar army of parasites, taking money away from the German people? |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #1 Not to be confused with our invading army from the south. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2024-04-14 13:35 |