Germany’s secretive ‘Sonderstab Ukraine’ fast-tracks weapons deals for Kyiv in as little as two weeks, FT reports

Filed 48m ago · Via Meduza · The Buffoon Desk

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Scheming Weasel (slower version)

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Frans Hals · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

A small unit inside Germany's Defense Ministry, the Sonderstab Ukraine, can close weapons deals for Kyiv in about two weeks, far faster than Germany's usual procurement process, according to the Financial Times. The unit, formed in 2022 and staffed by fewer than 20 people, sidesteps German bureaucracy because Ukraine's government signs the contracts rather than Berlin's.

Its head, Brigadier General Joachim Kaschke, credited ‘extremely short decision-making chains’ for the unit's speed. Germany has since become one of Kyiv's largest military backers, recently agreeing to transfer stockpiled anti-aircraft missiles for Patriot systems, even as a recent poll found German public opinion split, with a majority in the east and a large minority in the west calling arms deliveries excessive.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Twenty people moving faster than an entire ministry isn't a mystery, it's just what happens when you get out of your own way. Germany found the trick was letting somebody else sign the paperwork, which tells you plenty about the paperwork. Efficiency, it turns out, was available the whole time; it just wasn't filed under the usual desk.

Source: Read the original at Meduza → Scored: Scheming Weasel (slower version) · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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