Month: July 2022

BERLIN — It’s a hot candidate for the German word of the year — and increasingly a synonym for the problems surrounding Berlin’s military support for Ukraine: “Ringtausch.” Unlike its literal meaning — the exchange of rings at a wedding — the word has come to encompass the tank-swap scheme German Chancellor Olaf Scholz proposed […]

Jonas Parello-Plesner is executive director of the Alliance of Democracies Foundation and a non-resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund.   Being the neighbor of an authoritarian regime is dangerous. And Russia’s war in Ukraine has destroyed the last remnants of naivete about the threat posed by dictators like President Vladimir Putin.  Still, despite […]

BERLIN — The German government has approved a request by defense company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann to produce 100 howitzers for the Ukrainian army — although it will likely take many months before the first artillery units arrive in the war-torn country. Berlin’s readiness to sell such a large quantity of the Panzerhaubitze 2000 howitzer marks a […]

Dutch farmers dumped manure and set fire hay on fire along major highways Wednesday, prompting traffic jams in central and eastern parts of the Netherlands, in protest over government plans to reduce fertilizer use and livestock numbers. The disruptions were the latest in a series of protests that have shaken up the country and garnered […]