Twitter thread summarising a timeline of problems with German arms support. I've been able to verify some, but not all of the claims - so much German press is paywalled now, and my extremely limited German is not remotely up to paywall evasion
1) At the end of February Germany's defense industry sends Scholz a long list of all available weapons.
2) Scholz doesn't share the list with Ukraine.
3) Scholz says that there are no more weapons left in Germany to give to Ukraine.
4) Germany's defense industry leakes the list to Ukraine's ambassador.
5) Scholz says that the weapons on the list don't work.
6) The defense industry denies this and leakes the list to the press.
7) Scholz states Ukrainians can't master the weapons in the available time.
8) German defense experts tell the German press that Ukrainians can master the weapons in 2-3 weeks.
9) Scholz says the weapons are needed by NATO and NATO must approve their transfer.
10) NATO officials and German generals deny this.
11) Scholz says no other NATO/EU ally is delivering heavy weapons to Ukraine.
12) The US, UK, Australia, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, Turkey, Italy, Finland, Denmark, Romania, Netherlands, etc. publish the lists of heavy weapon they deliver to Ukraine.
13) Under pressure Scholz announces €2 billion for Ukraine's military.
14) German parliamentarians find out that it's really just €1 billion, which won't be available for another 2-3 months, and then Scholz can veto or delay indefinitely every item Ukraine wants to buy.
15) The US, France, Poland, Romania, Japan, the UK and Italy, plus the heads of EU and NATO spend an afternoon trying to talk sense into Scholz.
16) Scholz makes a statement and says Ukraine can have the €1 billion now and order whatever it wants from the list.
17) Ukraine's ambassador says that Scholz removed all the items Ukraine actually wants from the list before giving it to Ukraine and what remains on the list is just a fraction of the €1 billion.
It's the dishonesty of his press conference the other day that got me, pretending that other nations were taking the same approach even as they sent heavy and effective equipment.
