No sooner had Germany and other countries sent battle tanks to Ukraine than the call for combat aircraft became louder. But does that make sense? An overview.
Because Scholz drew a new red line in the Bundestag on Wednesday: Germany will not send any fighter jets to Ukraine. But the United States and France are not ruling out the delivery of fighter jets. That’s why it’s now being discussed in Germany, too, and it seems that nerves are on edge again. So, after the turnaround in battle tanks, is there also a turnaround in fighter jets? And would that even make sense?
Putin wants to prevent arms deliveries
From a military point of view, the use of Western combat aircraft in Ukraine currently makes little sense. Because then Ukraine would also have to attack anti-aircraft positions in Russia so that the jets can operate over Ukrainian airspace without being shot down. A no-fly zone was seen as a red line in the West: Ukraine should be allowed to defend itself and expel the aggressor, but under no circumstances should it attack Russia on its own territory. On the contrary, the USA and France, with their fundamental willingness, are showing Russian President Vladimir Putin that the West still has potential for escalation.
Many people in Germany are annoyed by the arms debate, many are also afraid of a further escalation of the war and of Germany and NATO possibly being drawn into this war. These fears are understandable, although they are actually unfounded.
Arms deliveries do not make NATO a war party under international law. Russian propaganda uses this narrative and already sees Russia in a proxy war with NATO and especially with the USA. But this is mainly to cover up their own military failures in Ukraine.
So far, Putin has not drawn any red lines on Western arms shipments. There was no announcement from the Kremlin that the supply of tanks or aircraft would mean NATO’s direct entry into the war. Not without reason, since Russia’s arsenal of conventional weapons is limited. The Kremlin chief knows very well that he would have little chance of achieving his war goals against a collective West. That’s why he’s toying with the fear of a world war to divide and weaken the West.
So it is not in Putin’s interest to drag the West into this war, on the contrary.
Ukraine is fighting for its survival
Ukraine, on the other hand, is in an existential war. At first glance, it may seem ungrateful or exorbitant from a Western perspective that Kyiv is now making further demands, including on Germany, immediately after the battle tank transition. But it is the task of the Ukrainian leadership to do just that.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy needs every weapon he can get in his fight against Russia. “Because the Ukrainians are fighting for their survival. Can there be excess in the fight for your own survival?” asked Claudia Major, security expert at the Science and Politics Foundation, in an interview with t-online. “Do we want to say in the West: ‘Well, you have to endure a bit of murder – but there aren’t any fighter jets’? In addition, Zelenskyj doesn’t demand, he asks.”
The fact that Zelenskyj is asking for long-range missiles and fighter jets can also be explained by the following reason: After many successful Ukrainian attacks on Russian weapons depots in the past year, the Russian army is now placing them outside the range of Ukrainian artillery.
