DISINFO: Scholz: requests to send planes, submarines to Ukraine undermine NATO unity
SUMMARY
Demands to supply military planes and submarines to Ukraine undermine unity among NATO members and Germany won’t take part in such debates, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared.
RESPONSE
The claim is a distortion of the actual statement of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. He criticized what he called “public competition” among some countries over who can deliver more and better weapons to Ukraine, but not the “demands to supply military planes and submarines” or the delivery of weapons by itself. Scholz’s exact words were: "From the first day of the war our strongest characteristic lies in our cohesion. We will simply not allow a country to invade another and disrupt peace in Europe", and later: "We preserve and strengthen this cohesion by first preparing decisions confidentially - and only then communicating them […] What harms our unity is a public competition to outdo each other along the lines of: battle tanks, submarines, aircraft - who is asking for more?".
The difference is significant, as this disinformation story portrays the German Chancellor as being against further arming Ukraine under the argument that it “undermines NATO unity”, which is clearly not the case in reality. This is part of a wider disinformation campaign aiming to erode public support for Western military and financial aid to help Ukraine to defend itself against Russia’s aggression, in accordance with the UN Charter Article 51.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that the US is prolonging war in Ukraine to benefit from weapons sales, that Western military aid to Ukraine only will cause more suffering, or that international support for Ukraine starts to decrease due to corruption.