![]() The question of whether Berlin would send Ukraine additional heavy military equipment, including Leopard 2 battle tanks and Marder infantry fighting vehicles, has become a litmus test in the eyes of Eastern allies on whether Berlin can transform its soft-power leadership role in Europe into a hard-power one. “If Germany would give to Ukraine proportionally what we have given to Ukraine, this war would be over,” Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks told Foreign Policy and a small group of American experts on a visit to Latvia organized by the German Marshall Fund think tank. And the longer it delays, the more it risks a long-term diplomatic fracture with those allies in the East, according to interviews with nearly a dozen Eastern European defense and diplomatic officials. In the eyes of Berlin’s NATO allies in Eastern Europe, particularly the countries that border Russia, Germany, the economic and political power center of Europe, isn’t doing nearly enough. The German government under Chancellor Olaf Scholz has faced mounting pressure from Eastern European allies and political forces in his own country in recent weeks to drastically increase the scale and type of military support he sends to Ukraine. That message was a not-so-subtle hint, and its target was likely Germany. In mid-September, as fresh reports emerged of widespread Russian atrocities against Ukrainian civilians in Moscow’s flailing war, Lithuania’s foreign minister had a simple message for his Western European counterparts: “Tanks speak louder than words.” ![]()
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