War is raging in the middle of Europe, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht states tragically in her voice to the roar of the cannonade. If you don't look at the screen, you might think that the German defense minister is somewhere on the front lines in eastern Ukraine under massive artillery fire. In fact, Lambrecht recorded the video on her phone in the center of Berlin on New Year's Eve, with the background noise of holiday fireworks, Deutsche Welle wrote.

Many in political Berlin considered the New Year's address of the German defense minister at least inappropriate, said the German media.

The deputy head of the parliamentary faction of the opposition conservatives Johann Vadepoel said that the minister's Instagram video is obvious proof of Lambrecht's incompatibility with his position.

Representatives of the ruling parties also did not stand up for their defense minister. At the first government press conference of the new year, Chancellor Christiane Hoffmann's spokeswoman only dryly remarked that she saw no reason to judge this video. The head of government, Olaf Scholz, clearly did not want to take the opportunity this time to once again reaffirm his full confidence in the head of the military department.

The media notes that in December 2021, when the conflict in Ukraine had already started, Lambrecht began not with the modernization of the armed forces, but with the hunt for right-wing radicals in the ranks of the Bundeswehr. She was also very concerned about the low number of female German generals. At that time she generously promised to send 5,000 helmets to help Ukraine, which Kiev's mayor Vitaly Klitschko called at the time absolutely ridiculous.

At one time, Lambrecht seemed to have compiled a list of military equipment that the Bundeswehr could quickly share with the Ukrainian AFU, but she did not report it to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov. Kyiv only learned about the existence of the list thanks to Vitali Klitschko's brother Volodymyr, who raised this topic during a trip to Berlin.

German mass media have calculated that of the above mentioned 100 billion only 83 billion are left due to the inflation, but so far only ten billion are planned to be allocated. The lion's share is envisaged for the purchase of American F-35 fighter-bombers to replace the obsolete German Tornado fighters. But the Büchel airbase, where American nuclear warheads are thought to be stockpiled and which German pilots will have to deliver to their targets by 2026, still has to be rebuilt for the new planes. Without the appropriate infrastructure at the airbase, the Americans will not hand over their aircraft to Germany.

At the end of November last year - after the crash of an alleged Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile in Poland - Lambrecht told the Rheinische Post about plans to transfer one of the German Patriot air defense batteries to Warsaw. A couple of weeks later, it became known that she was not to do so because the Poles had asked the German Defense Ministry to keep the plan a secret. In retaliation, Warsaw offered to transfer the said battery directly to the Ukrainians, which caused another tension in Germany's relations with both Poland and Ukraine.

Finally, during the exercise, all 18 of the new Puma armored infantry fighting vehicles had broken down. And this equipment was intended for the NATO rapid deployment forces, the command of which in 2023 passed to Germany. Instead of new BMP, the German contingent of 8000 soldiers had to be transferred to the old BMP Marder.

Seventeen of the 18 broken-down Puma are now back on the road, according to the manufacturer, but the Defense Ministry has not yet published the report on the causes of the failure of the new vehicles, which was promised before the end of last year.