Scholz Pledges 'Clear Signal' Of Support For Kyiv Amid Gov't Divisons

Wires carrying comments from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, saying that the West "Needs to send a clear signal to Putin after the election about our support for Ukraine". Says that he last spoke to Putin "more than a year ago", but that the prospect of speaking to him again "needs to happen at the right time". Says that Putin "believes Belarus and Ukraine belong to Russia" and that redrawing border is "his dream". Says that Germany pledges support for "as long as necessary", while US President Joe Biden pledges for as long as the US can.

• Scholz's pledges are coming under increasing pressure from within his own party. In a Bundestag debate Rolf Mutzenich, chair of Scholz's centre-left Social Democrats in the legislature, asked “Instead of asking how to wage war, isn’t it time to ask how we can freeze a war and end it later?”. The remarks were criticised by the former Ukrainian ambassador to Berlin as 'nauseating'.
• The liberal Free Democrats and environmentalist Greens, the SPD's coalition partners, have called for Germany to send long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine. Scholz has refused, with concerns of splits within his SPD a dissuading factor.
• The German coalition gov't has experienced a number of difficult challenges in recent months, with the debate over Taurus missiles adding to those over the 2024 Budget and poor polling numbers for all three government parties. While an imminent gov't collapse looks unlikely, the June European Parliament elections could prove another flashpoint.