While yes, what he said was probably pretty dumb, what kind of escalatory ladder can Putin climb? He’s already threatening to nuke everyone every other week. Doubt this, which he probably already knew, is going to be what makes him do it.
I don’t know if my reading comprehension is poor or the Independent managed to write everything but what Scholz said (in both this article and the self-referenced article within)…
Can someone please clarify? What intelligence did Scholz apparently breach?
From something I read yesterday he apparently talked about the UK helping them with targeting and intelligence with personnel on the ground. If I remember right.
It’s not exactly surprising news, so to elaborate, I think the criticism towards him has been exaggerated. Likely for political purposes.
“Tobias Ellwood, the former chairman of the Commons defence committee” is about half a year behind with his accusation. So either it’s just for show or he’s not well informed about this topic.
Already October 2023, this was in the news for everyone to read, that France and the UK are providing the geodata for their cruise missile targets and that the UK has personnel in Ukraine.
One example article I just picked via web search: German Tagesspiegel, dated 05.10.2023
Quote & DeepL translation:
The British and French can do something “we can’t”
The UK and France have nevertheless supplied cruise missiles of the virtually identical types “Storm Shadow” and “Scalp”. According to Bild, Scholz said in a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee last week that these two countries “can do something that we are not allowed to do”, adding: “So the question does not arise.”
What he meant was that the UK and France supplied the geodata for missile targets themselves, with the UK also having its own personnel on the ground in Ukraine. This is out of the question for the German government.
It‘s pretty disgusting how dumb they think the public is. On the other hand reading the responses of the public to this lie…they might be on to something.