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Reference News reported on August 18According to a report on the website of the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on August 17, Germany has to limit its military aid to Ukraine. According to the current fiscal planning of the German federal government, no more funds can be allocated for this purpose from now on. This is because the Chancellery and the Ministry of Finance have decided to implement fiscal austerity. Although most of the materials that have been approved for aid will still be delivered, at the request of Chancellor Scholz, additional applications from the Ministry of Defense will no longer be approved. German Finance Minister Lindner conveyed this request in a letter to Defense Minister Pistorius on August 5.

According to reports, the funding ban has already taken effect. For Ukraine, the situation may soon deteriorate, because Germany has already planned to use its aid funds for this year, and the planned upper limit for aid funds in 2025 is 4 billion euros, but the amount of materials approved for aid to Ukraine has obviously exceeded this limit. This means that no more aid can be provided. Germany plans to allocate 3 billion euros for military aid to Ukraine in 2026, and only plans to allocate 500 million euros each year in 2027 and 2028, which is less than one-tenth of this year.

But the Ministry of Finance believes that this does not mean that Germany can no longer provide military aid to Ukraine. According to Lindner's letter on August 5, he does not expect that Germany's aid to Ukraine will suddenly decrease significantly. It's just that this money will no longer be borne by German finances in the future, but will come from the frozen deposits of the Russian Central Bank. Ukraine's allies have confiscated about $300 billion in deposits in the Russian Central Bank. The Group of Seven decided at the Italian summit to use the interest on this money to provide Kiev with a total loan of $50 billion. Lindner now expects that Germany can use this money to "meet the main part of its military needs" for the Ukrainians.

The report also said that if this can be done, Ukraine will indeed no longer need money from Germany for a period of time. However, the G7 resolution is far from being implemented and is legally controversial. Relevant international negotiations are ongoing. No one in the German government departments that this newspaper inquired about knew that it would take several months for the relevant funds to arrive. Although the Chancellery is very optimistic about this, fiscal policy experts are skeptical about this.

The report believes that it is still difficult to say whether Germany will be able to use Russian money to aid Ukraine in the future, but it is certainly not possible to use fiscal funds for this purpose. The impact of this is already being felt. Sources said that because the ban has come into effect, the plan to provide Ukraine with an IRIS-T air defense system has not been funded. (Compiled by Wang Qing)