War and peace: Will Germany's election shape Ukraine's future?

On Monday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz made a surprise visit to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he visited wounded soldiers and pledged €650 million in military aid to be delivered in December.

In subsequent speeches and posts on social media, he repeatedly emphasised that Germany stands by Ukraine.

But on the home front, Scholz's surprise visit was overshadowed by the campaign for the upcoming Bundestag snap elections in February.

The Social Democratic Party (SPD) executive has unanimously nominated Scholz as the party's candidate for chancellor, despite his unpopularity: according to the ZDF Politbarometer in November, however, satisfaction with the chancellor was at only 35%, tailing behind Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and SPD Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, who had not yet renounced his candidacy.

In a speech on security policy on Wednesday, the CDU's Merz announced he too would be making a trip to Ukraine by the end of the year. He has called for the creation of a "contact group" bringing together Germany, France, Poland and the UK that can develop a joint European strategy to support Ukraine.

Ukraine must be supported by all means, Merz said, in order to win the war.

The 24-hour ultimatum

The future and limits of aid and military support for Ukraine is a definining issue for all parties running for office.

A few weeks ago, Merz suggested in an interview with Der Spiegel that the range limitations placed on the weapons Ukraine has been given should be jointly revoked if Russia didn't stop its bombardment of civilians and civilian infrastructure within 24 hours. Should this not be sufficient, he said, Taurus missiles could be delivered a week later.

Scholz, by contrast, has so far emphasised "prudence". He recently insinuated in a post on X that Merz is risking a nuclear war with his ultimatum to Russia.

"All I can say is: when it comes to issues of war and peace, you don't need an unpredictable opposition leader, you need a cool head", he wrote.

Merz then accused Scholz of fuelling fear of war — but has since contradicted his own statement, denying he gave Putin an ultimatum.

However, according to Ukrainian journalist Denis Trubetskoy, Merz's statement was nevertheless completely legitimate.

"In principle, he said that Russia should stop attacking Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, otherwise Germany will supply long-range weapons with Taurus," he explained in an interview with Euronews in a Kyiv cafe.

"To be honest, this isn't a radical position, as Ukraine is already authorised to use Storm Shadow and ATACMS on Russian territory."

Trubetskoy was unable to conduct the interview at home because intensified Russian attacks on the energy infrastructure have left Ukrainian households without electricity for hours at a time.

Trubetskoy was loath to criticise Scholz's reaction to Merz's statement, but nor did he praise his ultimatum, instead describing it as "populism". He sees changes in public mood as a far greater danger.

"We have to assume that this war, or at least the phase of active combat, could last for years," he explained. "Ultimately, a lot will depend on the mood and climate in Germany."

The journalist believes that Germany's importance for Ukraine should not be underestimated. If financial aid from the US is reduced or even cancelled, the burden of financial support will fall on the shoulders of the EU and Germany.

The country's aid agency, USAID, has provided significant funding to Ukraine this year, including $1.75 billion for agricultural resilience and $32 million for anti-corruption and additional humanitarian and budget support.

The total of USAID assistance since the outbreak of the full-scale invasion reportedly includes over $3 billion for humanitarian assistance and long-term development and governance projects.

According to a report by the German government, Germany has pledged around €1.2 billion in humanitarian and economic support to Ukraine in 2024. This money will be directed into various areas, including energy supply, infrastructure, healthcare and support for the government in stabilising its economy.

Despite the critical importance of this aid, he believes that Germany's federal elections are not as worrisome for Ukrainians as the recent presidential elections in the US.

"The US election became a topic for kitchen conversations here, which were sometimes viewed in a fatalistic way," he said, noting that while Ukrainians knew that they would have to live with the result of the election and that their lives could be directly affected by it, "the fact that the 'traffic light'-coalition broke pretty much exactly on the day Trump won was of course a factor of concern".

"However, I have to say the date set for the snap election was found relatively quickly and is no longer that far in the future. If we look at the possible election result, Ukrainians can be reasonably relaxed."

In his opinion, a coalition between the CDU and the Greens or a grand coalition would be results that Ukraine could be satisfied with. "In essence, this would mean that support for Ukraine would continue at least after 23 February."

Until it gets to that point, Germany will go into a Christmas season of election campaigning. In the end, Trubetskoy doubts whether a possible Chancellor Merz would take a completely different course to Scholz.

Campaigning at Ukraine's expense?

"Of course, this is also a potential problem for the mood in Germany in the long term", explained Trubetskoy, alluding to the Taurus missile debate that regularly flares up.

"There needs to be a rethink as quickly as possible in terms of general support for Ukraine. Roughly speaking, without quoting specific data, Ukraine would now need 300 Marder, 500 Leos, increased ammunition production, and so on. It is of course much easier to discuss a single weapon system than to address all these issues, which are really difficult to implement, where you could initiate a debate among the population that might turn out to be more complicated."

A recent survey by Germany's Körber Foundation revealed that while 57% of Germans support military aid to Ukraine, 40% are opposed. Opposition is strongest among supporters of the leftist Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht party (91%), and of the AfD (78%). 35% of CDU supporters, however, also oppose military aid to Ukraine.

Scholz regularly asserts that Germany will stand by Ukraine for "as long as it takes", and presents himself as the so-called "peace chancellor". What Trubetskoy criticises are peace proposals that he views as completely unrealistic.

"There are no people who want peace more than the Ukrainians," he says. "But there is this man in the Kremlin with his ideas. And this man also currently sees himself on the winning side."

He is of the same opinion as many outside experts who argue Putin is not seeking negotiations at all, and wants to continue the war.

Posting on X, Claudia Major, research group leader for security and defence policy at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, put it this way: "Peace is the goal. Russia can achieve peace simply by stopping attacking Ukraine. But it is choosing to continue destroying the country and annihilating the population."

The phonecall

A few weeks ago, Scholz announced he had become the first head of a major Western government to call the Russian President since the full-scale invasion began. The news of the phonecall angered some NATO states and Ukraine.

Scholz told Putin to withdraw his troops from Ukraine. But Putin did not respond to this demand — and a few days after the call, Russia attacked the Ukrainian city of Dnipro for the first time with a medium-range ballistic missile system known as Oreshnik.

"I think there was quite a lot of incomprehension about the phone call. This lack of understanding was well-founded, simply because people couldn't understand what a de facto outgoing chancellor without a majority government could possibly offer Vladimir Putin, who clearly sees himself on the winning side in this long war", said Trubetskoy, adding that he thinks the phone call was part of the SPD election campaign.

Being the object of a possible election campaign strategy is a feeling that Trubetskoy describes as "extremely unpleasant".

"That was already the case in the US election campaign", he added. "Of course, you also feel a little exploited. That's clear. But we have to come to terms with this situation. We are dependent on Western aid, and without help from the US, Germany, and other countries, this country might no longer exist, at least in its current form. That's why, in the end, the cynical and pragmatic 'close your eyes and get on with it' applies!"

After more than 1,000 days of all-out war, Trubetskoy has the feeling that many people abroad still don't understand that Putin is not only aiming to occupy and seize Ukrainian regions, but to destroy the state. Even before the full-scale invasion, Putin denied the country's existence in speeches and essays.

For Trubetskoy, Russia's war of aggression is a war of the past against the future. "It is always clear that the future wins such wars. Unfortunately, it is far from certain whether we will survive this war here in Ukraine."