Germany abandons muted approach to aid for Ukraine, sending weapons and greenlighting sanctions

Germany on Saturday took significant steps toward shedding its post-World War II caution about being a significant global security player, announcing it would deliver extensive lethal weaponry to Ukraine and embracing broad restrictions on Russian banks that it had previously rebuffed.

The double-barreled shift following the Russian invasion of Ukraine — “the turning of an era,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said — came after years in which German policymakers declared they could separate business from politics, even approving the construction of Nord Stream 2, a gas pipeline linking Germany and Russia, in 2015, the year after the Kremlin annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.