Before the new package of artillery and air defense systems, Berlin already was Ukraine’s third-biggest arms supplier behind the United States and Britain. But Zelensky has visited many other allies ahead of Germany, indicative of the difficulties in the two countries’ relationship.
He flew from Italy and was greeted in Berlin by Chancellor Olaf Scholz with military honors. “Already in Berlin. Weapons. Powerful package. Air defense. Reconstruction. EU. NATO. Security,” the Ukrainian president tweeted in the early hours of Sunday morning.
He then met German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a politician who has been criticized for his previous cozy relations with Moscow. The session represented a thaw after Zelensky disinvited Steinmeier from a visit to Kyiv last year, setting off a diplomatic spat.
Zelensky is expected to travel to the western German city of Aachen to receive the International Charlemagne Prize for services to Europe.
In pledging the additional military aid, which comes as Ukraine readies a counteroffensive against Russian forces, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Saturday that Germany “will provide all the help it can, as long as it takes.”
Scholz announced last year a “zeitenwende,” or turning point, in the country’s defense strategy after Russia attacked Ukraine. But Kyiv was frustrated by Germany’s perceived dithering in the first weeks of the fighting and subsequent foot-dragging on sending heavy weaponry.
Zelensky’s visit to Germany almost didn’t happen after details of his itinerary, including the hotel he had booked, were published by a Berlin newspaper, according to a Ukrainian official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal government deliberations.
“People were furious,” the official said, adding that it was the first time such explicit details had been made public so far in advance of a Zelensky visit abroad.
Berlin police have launched an investigation into how the information passed to the media. Chief Barbara Slowik described it as “unbearable” that “a single employee is damaging the reputation of the Berlin police in such a shameful way nationally and internationally.”
The Ukrainian official speculated as to whether more nefarious reasons were at play. “Was the intention to destroy this relationship?” the official said of the impact on German-Ukrainian ties. “It’s very fragile.”
The tension in the relationship — rooted in the two country’s differing views of the Russian threat — long predates the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine last year. In Ukraine, Germany is regularly blamed for laying Russia’s path for the war by ignoring Kyiv’s warnings that the Nord Stream pipelines threatened its security and also for coercing the government to accept the maligned Minsk agreements following Russia’s 2014 invasion and illegal annexation of Crimea.
For Ukraine, pragmatic considerations influence trips such as Zelensky’s, said Susan Stewart, an analyst at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
Ukraine’s performance on the battlefield has added impetus to the political debate over sending arms. The country is keen to shore up continued supplies of tanks from Europe, and Zelensky is also lobbying for fighter jets. Germany has so far ruled out sending jets.
“Germany continues to be an extremely important partner for Ukraine and one that Ukraine appreciates,” Stewart said. “It’s just that because of this sort of an initial hesitance and because of the previous positions toward Russia, there is this kind of lingering lack of complete trust or a sense that others are perhaps even more on Ukraine’s side.”
