German political leaders have reacted with alarm to U.S. President Donald Trump’s bombshell announcement that his administration will conduct peace negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the head of European leaders.

“To be clear, peace must last over the long term. It must secure Ukraine’s sovereignty,” said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday. “That is why we will never support a dictated peace. Nor will we accept any solution that leads to a decoupling of European and American security. Only one person would benefit from that. President Putin.”

Scholz, whose Social Democratic Party (SPD) is in third place according to polls ahead of a Feb. 23 national election, called for more spending on Germany’s defense and military aid for Ukraine, and urged conservatives to relax the country’s strict spending rules — a theme he has touched on repeatedly during the election campaign — in order to do so.

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    • jrs100000@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      Everyone is calm because any analyst worth the name should have seen this coming since November, and its far too late to stop at this point.

      I dont know why Europe didnt start rearming eight years ago, but now they are going to suffer for that oversight.

    • BestBouclettes@jlai.lu
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      10 days ago

      Because nobody believes it can actually happen. 70 years of continuous peace makes people complacent. Which is good in itself, but when shit hits the fan we just sit back and expect it to blow over.

    • Serinus@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      Because we can’t do anything about it.

      Europe needs to put boots on the ground in Ukraine. You need to stop this now.

      Partly to stop the invasion of Europe. Partly to gear up Europe for war in the hopes of preventing a larger conflict later.

      • luciferofastora@feddit.org
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        9 days ago

        That would risk direct conflict between nuclear powers. I’m not sure that’s a gamble we should take.

        I’m not sure we shouldn’t take it either. I don’t know, really. But it’s scary.

      • ms.lane@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        Europe won’t though, since they expect US/UK/AUS to do all the military heavy lifting and always have.

          • Serinus@lemmy.world
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            9 days ago

            The US fostered this and the EU was happy to accept it. It worked out reasonably well for everyone until about checks watch right now.

            The EU got to under fund and under prepare their military, and the US was effectively buying soft power and security around the world. It’s why the US able to basically unilaterally drag a coalition into Iraq.

        • Justin@lemmy.jlh.name
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          10 days ago

          This makes no sense.

          When did European leaders ever say that the US should put boots on the ground in Ukraine?