Scholz slated for ‘inaudible' position on Ukraine

Germany’s new chancellor Olaf Scholz is waving goodbye to the honeymoon period of his tenure, as his “inaudible” stance over the brewing crisis on the Ukrainian border is failing to impress not only Russia-hawks abroad but also more ambivalent voters at home.

- Philip Oltermann

Scholz, whose liberal-left “traffic light” coalition was sworn in less than two months ago, has been criticised by Kyiv and other east-central European capitals for sticking to his country’s restrictive stance on weapons export and slow to spell out potential sanctions that could be triggered by a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

On German television last week, Scholz was asked: “How does it feel when allies are classifying Germany’s attitude as unreliable?”

Scholz seemed “to want to surpass [Angela Merkel] in the art of disappearance”, wrote the weekly Der Spiegel, describing his performance as “almost invisible, inaudible”.