A German general has warned there is deteriorating security relations between Europe and Washington.
General Chrisitan Freuding, former commander of the 9th Panzerlehr Brigade was promoted in October to the Inspector of the Army.
He has said that his communication with the Pentagon has now been “completely cut off” by Donald Trump’s administration, but previously he was in daily contact with US officials.
The general has described this as a “warning sign” as there is growing uncertainty over the US President’s commitment to security across Europe.
General Freuding said that Berlin received no advance communication that the US will suspend arms shipments to Ukraine.
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During an interview with the Atlantic he said, “You not only have an enemy knocking at the door.
“But you also are in the process of losing a true ally and friend.”
The German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul told the Berlin Policy Forum last week that Vladimir Putin has “imperial” ambitions beyond war torn Ukraine, which comes as Berlin’s intelligence services have claimed that Russia will be able to attack NATO by 2029.
Putin has accused the European Union of sabotaging negotiations and said that if NATO wants a war then Russia is “ready to fight.”
Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said it’s “pretty obvious that he [Putin] doesn’t want to have any kind of peace.”
The Russian dictator said on Tuesday, “We are not planning to go to war with Europe, but if Europe wants to and starts, we are ready right now.
“They are on the side of war.”
Putin accused European leaders of trying to undermine Trump’s peace efforts, he said that the EU are making proposals that Russia will never accept.
Putin said, “We can clearly see that all these changes are aimed at only one thing: to block the entire peace process altogether, to make such demands which are absolutely unacceptable to Russia.”
On Tuesday the European Commissioner for Justice and Democracy Michael McGrath has issued Donald Trump a new red line which will anger the Kremlin and should make Putin worried.
McGrath told Politico, “I don’t think history will judge kindly any effort to wipe the slate clean for Russian crimes in Ukraine.
“They must be held accountable for those crimes, and that will be the approach of the European Union in all of these discussions.
“Were we to do so, to allow for impunity for those crimes, we would be sowing the seeds of the next round of aggression and the next invasion.
“And I believe that that would be a historic mistake of huge proportions.”
