German Army facing severe arms shortage, has ammo only to last 2 days of war, says top MP

German armed forces are currently facing severe shortages of ammunition, the Bundestag’s commissioner for the armed forces, Eva Hoegl, revealed on Sunday. The German Army lacks certain basic personal equipment to fight a war, she shockingly noted during an interview with the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. “Without munitions, it’s all nothing,” Hoegl said. Furthermore, she called on the German administration to focus on replenishing the arms depots, particularly during the heightened security risks across the European region from the ongoing Russian offensive in Ukraine. 

The total cost to fully restock the ammunition for the German Army may cost the Bundeswehr €20 billion, predicted Hoegl. She then launched a scathing attack on the German government for its inaction saying that the officials "dragged their feet on the topic [of military replenishment] for years." She focused on the sorry state of affairs among the German troops deployed elsewhere in Europe, such as in Lithuania, where she notes they conduct military drills without bulletproof jackets or proper munition. 

“With sick, parental, and education leaves, many units reach the staffing level of only 60% of what they have on paper," German MP  stressed.

Hoegl warned that “without sufficient personnel, the best of weapons are of little use.” She appealed to the German government to pay attention to the needs of the armed forces and revamp the defence landscape by prioritizing and slashing the deployments and purchasing more weaponry. Earlier, a report in Business Insider claimed that the German military's stockpile of arms would last them only one or two days in case a war broke out. They even lacked ground-based IRIS-T systems. 

Germany's Scholz asks Putin to 'stop' war, give peace a chance

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz earlier yesterday urged Russian president Vladimir Putin to end the brutal war in Ukraine and instead give peace a chance. Scholz, in an impassioned speech, asked Russia's authoritarian leader to “stop this war, withdraw your troops," according to Spiegel. Germany, which regrets its role in World War II and has taken a different approach towards the conflict than the rest of Europe, demanded that Moscow "clears the way for peace negotiations." German Chancellor, in his stern stance against the Russian offensive, said that "no country is its neighbour’s backyard". "No one has the right to take someone else’s territory," Scholz said. He had also earlier urged Russia's steadfast ally China to intervene and bring an end to hostilities by mediating dialogue between the two warring sides.