The focus of attention has shifted from the war in Ukraine to the aftermath of the war: inflation, rising food prices, usury on fuel. Germany is now experiencing the “moment of tiredness” that Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck warned about – much to Vladimir Putin’s delight.
It’s bad news for Ukraine: Three quarters of Germans do not believe in a military victory for Ukraine. Two-thirds think that only a negotiated solution can end the Ukraine war. And four-fifths are of the opinion that it is right to continue talking to the aggressor Vladimir Putin. So, according to Forsa pollsters, a clear majority of Germans support Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s hesitant course in the Ukraine war.
The scenario warned of by top Greens Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck is now happening – the Germans are getting tired of this war. Saying “war-weary” is politically difficult because Germany is not at war, which the chancellor wanted to avoid from day one.
The Foreign Minister recently warned – in English – of a “moment of tiredness” (fatigue). The Economics Minister before a “dramatic increase in heating costs” and the consequences for the mood in the country in the fall. In East Germany, the mood is once again significantly more critical of Ukraine than in the West.
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Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk found that more than half of the local population believed that Germany was becoming too involved in the Ukraine war and that 70 percent were opposed to the delivery of heavy weapons. Figures confirmed by the Allensbach Institute.
It’s no wonder that the strong parties in the East, Die Linke and AfD, are stirring up sentiment against Germany’s support for Ukraine – they represent what a majority in East Germany thinks. For weeks, the Halle historian Johannes Varwick has been making public use of his critical assessments of Ukraine. Now the professor at Maischberger said that this war was “lost anyway” for Ukraine.
Moods change – and that is precisely why they are a weapon of war. The focus of attention in the West, including Germany, has long since shifted from the war to the consequences of the war – the record fuel and food prices and the utility bills that are looming in the fall, which will make living drastically more expensive.
And the latest news is likely to darken the mood further – to the delight of Vladimir Putin, the aggressor. The Economics Ministry knows that there is not enough gas for the winter. Which means two things: there is a risk of shortages with potentially drastic economic upheavals. The German industry warns about it almost every day. And prices for the scarce commodity will continue to rise.
In addition, Putin has adjusted his war strategy. Not only is his troop of soldiers now concentrating on the East, conquering the Donbass region city by city. Above all, he turned the initial “Blitzkrieg” into a war of position or attrition.
Putin has slowed down the war so much that it would take him 100 years from now to completely conquer Ukraine. The Potsdam military historian Sönke Neitzel published this figure on Wednesday.
In terms of mood, it looks like this: Because of the inflation that was also caused by the war, Germans are worried about their money, not only about their prosperity, but many also about whether there will be enough at the end of the month. Because of the Corona summer that has started (the next wave was not expected until autumn), Germans are increasingly worried about their health – with the worries and the obvious carelessness at the same time behaving like communicating tubes.
And finally: fewer and fewer people want to know exactly what is happening in Ukraine – which is understandable in view of the war atrocities perpetrated by the Russians. But it has exactly the psychological effect that Baerbock and Habeck warned about – exhaustion is developing.
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Then there is the communication of the Ukrainian government, which wants to make the West, especially Germany, feel guilty in order to achieve more and faster arms deliveries. You can understand Zelenskyj, especially when you look at the photos on social media of the young men between 18 and 25 who were so hopeful and thirsty for life and who are now being slaughtered like flies.
And yet, the constant admonitions add to the exhaustion in the West. In combination with the war goals that Zelenskyy has now announced, such as recapturing Crimea, the increasingly distanced mood towards Ukraine is likely to increase again.
Selenskyj finds himself in a dilemma that can hardly be resolved: if he remains silent, the war in his country will disappear from public view. If he speaks, the exhaustion effect threatens, which Ukraine’s President himself described with concern (at the World Economic Forum in Davos) as “fed up”.
As if all that weren’t enough, the sanctions have not yet caused Putin to desist from his war. This is also due to the inconsistency of the West. In the first 100 days of the war, Russia received a total of 93 billion euros for raw material exports – 57 billion of them from European countries, writes Christian Neef, a long-time expert on the East, on Twitter.
Germany’s one-sided dependence on Russian gas, attributed to a grand coalition of industrialists and German chancellors, still provides Russia with indirect war financing. It will remain so for a while.
At least that’s the mood in which Olaf Scholz leaves for Ukraine – probably on Thursday. For obvious security reasons, the date and itinerary are not confirmed. In any case, Scholz’ travel partner, French President Emmanuel Macron, is already in the region.
From Romania, he recommended a negotiated solution to his Ukrainian presidential colleague, something that Zelenskyy flatly rejects and will probably continue to reject because the military situation in Ukraine is currently deteriorating.
Zelensky knows only too well that a peace that is not a Russian “dictated peace” will only be possible when Russia is on the verge of military defeat. And that’s not what it looks like – especially since conquests, more precisely: reconquests, are something completely different than “just” defending an area. Historian Neitzel, who is anything but an expert on Russia, calls the reconquest of the Donbass alone “completely unrealistic”.
Conclusion: Just at the moment when Ukraine is suffering the greatest casualties, the mood in the West is turning towards “fed up”. Ukraine should be happy that there are no presidential or federal elections in the West, especially in Germany and France.
