I'm so pleased that the supply of German helmets has finally reached Ukraine

[MaMaLa321]

• and been left at the border.

Seriously, AIBU to think that the EU (AKA the maintainer of peace in Europe) is pathetic. Understandably, I know. Italy has lobbied successfully to have its luxury products left out of sanctions. Germany has successfully blocked the removal of Russia from SWIFT. I know that this thread is petty, faced with what Ukranians are facing as we speak - that is why I've started a separate thread so that I'm not hi-jacking more serious threads. But all this, to me, has just shown how fucking useless the EU is.

YABU op because the EU was primarily established to maintain peace and facilitate trade among its members after the second world war and has very little to do with military matters.

@MaMaLa321

so, about what in particular? The pathetically low level of aid from Germany?

Being a bit selective here, aren't you? German financial support to Ukraine over the past years has been the highest of all, higher than US support even though the latter is a much bigger economy.

Yes the helmets saga is mortifying, not least because it demonstrates the abysmal level of equipment afflicting the German military- it's simply what they were able to scrape together at short notice. As to seriously arming Ukraine, it would have been politically impossible to get consensus on delivering warships - which us apparently what Ukraine really wanted - or surface to air weapons.

Concerning SWIFT, apparently the concerns weren't just about the economic impact on our side but even more importantly about the practicality. Russia has already built up the rudiments of a (small-scale) competing system and would likely also be able to use Chinese facilities, so any disruption quite likely would be only short term.