Europe

the former German defense minister

The European oligarchs chose to a put a defense minister in charge. Jacobin, 2019: The European Union Is an Antidemocratic Disgrace

She's definitely the right person to lose the war. She has a professional track record of screwing things up.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

So with the United States hesitant to continue funding the war and a looming possible return of former President Donald Trump, this week’s summit of EU leaders in Brussels is the perfect place for von der Leyen to make her pitch.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s increasingly hawkish rhetoric has led to annoyance in Berlin, especially when France urged Europe not to act as “cowards” in the face of Russia’s aggression.

“There is a lot of fear that we could reach a tipping point where we could potentially see some real Russian breakthroughs this summer,” said Alissa de Carbonnel, deputy program director for Europe and Central Asia at the International Crisis Group, an NGO.

The Franco-German quibbling and the continued Russian threat, at a time when U.S. support for Ukraine has been cast into question, helps von der Leyen, a former German defense minister, in her bid to stay on as head of the EU’s executive arm.

But some European leaders, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, fear handing ammunition to Ukraine will contribute to a military escalation.

After two years of war and with the situation on the ground deteriorating, Ukraine’s supporters argue the EU has to put the money where the mouth is, Latvian Foreign Minister Krišjānis Kariņš told reporters.

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