MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd September, 2022) Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks on Friday criticized the German authorities for insufficient military assistance to Kiev.
"I'm at risk of upsetting (German Chancellor Olaf) Scholz or someone else in Germany. But looking at it from the Latvian perspective . . . and this public view goes across the Baltic states, Poland and Ukraine, my wish would be that a country such as Germany would give proportionally equal support to Ukraine like we are doing," Pabriks told the Times newspaper, adding that Berlin's contribution had been an inadequate "kind of performance."
The minister believes that Germany's military assistance to Ukraine should be increased tenfold to 15 billion Euros ($14.93 billion).
In August, Scholz said that Berlin has been regularly supplying Kiev with "very effective" weapons and vowed to continue the deliveries if there is no escalation. He noted that the upcoming arms deliveries will include the Cobra radar system and the IRIS-T (Infra Red Imaging System Tail/Thrust Vector-Controlled) air defense systems.
Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24 after the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk appealed for help in defending themselves against Ukrainian forces. In response to Russia's operation, Western countries have rolled out a comprehensive sanctions campaign against Moscow and have been supplying weapons to Ukraine.
Moscow has voiced protests to NATO countries over the supply of weapons to Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has stressed that all cargo that contains arms deliveries for Ukraine could become a target for Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stressed that providing Kiev with Western arms does not contribute to the resolution of the Ukraine conflict and will only have negative consequences.
