Retired U.S. Lieutenant General Ben Hodges suggested that Germany may be withholding support for Ukraine amid fears that former President Donald Trump will win reelection.
Speaking with Al Jazeera on the sidelines of the Delphi Economic Forum held in Greece earlier this week, Hodges, who served as commanding general of U.S. Army Europe from 2014 to 2018, said that more needs to done by Western powers to defend Ukraine from Russia’s invasion, saying that the worst-case scenario for Kyiv would be for NATO to “keep doing what we’re doing, exactly right now.”
Hodges specifically called out leaders like German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has repeatedly refused to provide Ukraine with Taurus cruise missiles, a powerful warhead that has a range of up to 310 miles.
“That is 99 percent because [Scholz] is convinced that if Trump is president, then he will withdraw the nuclear shield from Europe and turn his back on NATO,” Hodges told Al Jazeera. “Germany then, unlike France and the UK if it ended up in a conflict with Russia over Taurus, would be without a nuclear deterrent.”
Scholz announced in a post to X, formerly Twitter, that Berlin is set to provide Ukraine with an additional Patriot air defense system, which has also been repeatedly requested by Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the German leader for the decision in his own post to X, but has also been critical of Scholz’s choice to withhold Taurus missiles.
“As far as I understand, the chancellor believes that, as he is a representative of a non-nuclear state, this is the only weapon that Germany has, is the most powerful one,” Zelensky said in an interview with Politico‘s parent company, Axel Springer, earlier this month. “He shared messages with me saying that he cannot leave his country without such a powerful weapon.”
While speaking with Al Jazeera, Hodges also suggested that President Joe Biden‘s administration was “unduly scared” of Russian President Vladimir Putin amid the war in Ukraine.
“They think that if Ukraine liberates Crimea, that will lead to the collapse of the regime [of Putin], or that Putin will think he has no choice but to use a nuclear weapon to prevent that from happening,” Hodges continued. “I think those are two false, unfounded fears. I hope it does lead to the collapse of the Putin regime. It’s not something we should fear. It’s something we should plan.”
The former U.S. general was also doubtful that Russia has the “capability to knock Ukraine out of the war,” adding that he had confidence in Ukraine’s ability to “stabilize” the front lines and rebuild its own defenses.
Ukraine’s ground commander, Lieutenant General Oleksandr Pavliuk, told news outlets last month that Kyiv’s No. 1 priority was to “stabilize the contact line” and replenish its own forces to “establish an attack group and conduct counteroffensive operations this year.”
