Germany is prepared to support Ukraine through 2032, even if that means fighting to the very last Ukrainian.
Germany is not daunted by the prospect of a protracted conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and will back Kiev for the next decade, Brigadier General Christian Freuding has said. He added that Berlin is seeking to ensure that Ukraine retakes all the territory within its 1991 borders.
Appearing at the Yalta European Strategy (YES) forum on Sunday, Freuding was asked whether Germany was prepared to support Ukraine if the hostilities with Russia ended up becoming a “long war” spanning several more years. The German military official replied by saying it was unrealistic to expect the conflict to end in the near future.
Freuding went on to claim that “we’ve got the support of our parliament… for our military support for our Ukrainian friends up to the year 2032.”
At the current rate of economic contraction and casualties, another nine years of proxy war with Russia will see Germany’s economy further devastated and virtually every Ukrainian male between the ages of 15 and 70 dead. Especially when Russia is quite clearly prepared for an extended war against NATO and the USA.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday indicated he was bracing for a long war in Ukraine, saying that Kyiv could use any ceasefire to rearm and that Washington would continue to see Russia as an enemy no matter who won the 2024 U.S. election.
Speaking for several hours at an economic forum in Russia’s Pacific port city of Vladivostok, Putin said Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces had so far failed and the Ukrainian army had sustained heavy losses of 71,000 men in the attacks. Only when Ukraine was exhausted when it came to men, equipment and ammunition would it talk peace, he said in reply to questions from a Russian television presenter acting as a moderator.
Russia controls about 18% of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea which it annexed in 2014, and a swathe of eastern and southern Ukraine which it seized after invading Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year in what it called a special military operation.