Ukraine pleads for air defence missiles

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘Ukraine pleads for air defence missiles’

Sonja Hutson
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Thursday, April 20th, and this is your FT News Briefing.

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There’s been a big drop in European natural gas usage. Ukrainian officials say they’re running dangerously low on air defence missiles. And Germany looks like it’ll be the next country to legalise recreational cannabis.

Guy Chazan
This is a major development in the decriminalisation of cannabis and it could very much be seen as an important precedent in Europe.

Sonja Hutson
I’m Sonja Hutson, in for Marc Filippino. And here’s the news you need to start your day.

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There’s been fears of a gas shortage in Europe ever since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. But now a new study from the EU is easing some of those concerns. The report says natural gas consumption fell almost 18 per cent over the past eight months. The large drop was partly thanks to a milder winter, but it also reflected energy conservation efforts and a switch to alternative fuel and power sources. The larger-than-expected fall in EU gas consumption has also driven a recent drop in prices and helped boost storage levels.

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Ukrainian officials are meeting in Germany tomorrow to plead with western allies to send them air defence supplies. Kyiv is in the midst of planning a spring counter-offensive, but it’s worried that a shortage of surface-to-air missiles would allow Russia to launch widespread bombing attacks. Here’s the FT’s European diplomatic correspondent, Henry Foy.

Henry Foy
Air cover is really crucial for a counter-offensive because basically if you are exposed to Russian air attacks, your massed tanks, your massed formations of troops are gonna become easy targets from the air. And so Ukraine needs this air defence capability to effectively protect its guys on the ground who are trying to make advances. The second big concern for the Ukrainians is that if the counter-offensive doesn’t succeed and Russia hits back with what we believe and what US intelligence has been sharing is a massive amount of Russian air power, Ukraine needs the ability to defend itself from that. Otherwise Russia could make major gains.

Sonja Hutson
And it also has to do with Ukraine’s dwindling supply of these missiles, right?

Henry Foy
That’s right. And that’s really a product of two things. The first is what Ukrainians would say is not fast enough supplies from western allies. The second, that western allies counter, is that basically what Russia’s been doing for most of the winter is launching these regular barrages of missile and drone attacks targeting Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, targeting towns and cities. Of course, Ukraine fires back at these, tries to down these missiles and drones usually quite successfully using air defence equipment. So what Russia has done through these quite regular bombing raids is it’s used up a lot of Ukraine’s surface-to-air missiles so that they don’t have a huge amount left to take down fighter jets and bombers if and when Russia starts to use those.

Sonja Hutson
What have western officials said? Does it look like they’re gonna provide Ukraine with these missiles?

Henry Foy
So we know that the US at least is fully aware of this shortage. In the US intelligence that was leaked online in the last few months they showed that basically the five major systems could all run out of munitions by mid-May. When the FT revealed the US intelligence showing that there was Russian air power being massed on the border, the US actually responded with quite a large package of air defence equipment and missiles. But the problem is about how much there are in western stocks to give and how fast factories can produce these things. And really this debate, like other debates around ammunition and artillery in Europe at the moment, is it’s exposing just the lack of capability in western defence industry to meet the demand of what is now an incredibly gruelling and long war.

Sonja Hutson
That’s the FT’s European diplomatic correspondent, Henry Foy.

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Germany could soon become the largest legal market in the world for cannabis. The government has put forward a plan that would allow people to cultivate, possess and consume the drug for recreation. To find out more, I’m joined by our Berlin bureau chief, Guy Chazan. Hey, Guy.

Guy Chazan
Hi.

Sonja Hutson
So Guy, this is a big move. Why are lawmakers doing this now?

Guy Chazan
Well, I mean, the health minister, Karl Lauterbach, said that there was a consensus that Germany’s criminalisation of drugs isn’t really working. Offences are just going through the roof and they’re taking up more and more of police time and also clogging up the court system. They also say that, you know, this is a good opportunity to kind of beat back the black market in drugs and actually remove one of the main sources of income for criminal groups, organised criminal groups. But the way they’re doing it is extremely tentative compared to how they initially wanted to proceed. I mean, according to the initial plan, they actually wanted to allow licensed sort of dispensaries where you could buy cannabis and that has now been abandoned.

Sonja Hutson
How does Germany’s cannabis law, or proposal I guess we should say, how does it compare to the Netherlands, which, you know, has long been well known for legalisation of the drug?

Guy Chazan
Well, it’s not gonna be like Holland in the sense that, you know, cannabis is not gonna be available in cafés. Essentially, what they’re gonna create under this law are sort of cannabis clubs, which are non-profit associations of people who together will cultivate cannabis and then provide it to their members. But we’re talking about quite small amounts. I mean, the law would decriminalise the possession of up to 25g of cannabis and also allow people to cultivate up to three cannabis plants at home without incurring any sort of punishment. So it’s all fairly small-scale. But what is interesting is that they’ve also created a kind of model, a sort of program which would allow a supply chain in cannabis to evolve. And they’re gonna be monitoring these model programs in a few regions to see what effect they’ll have on protection of youth and on the health system and on the black market. And if there’s a positive evaluation of this, then they’ll allow them on a sort of broader scale. So that could actually pave the way for licensed dispensaries and shops selling cannabis products.

Sonja Hutson
Guy, you wrote in your story that Germany’s legalisation could have consequences for broader EU drug policy. How so?

Guy Chazan
Well, Karl Lauterbach, the health minister, he said that he hoped this would basically influence European policy more broadly to become less punitive, less prohibitive, and possibly sort of push other European countries to adopt a more liberal approach to soft drugs. Whether other countries will follow suit, it’s obviously too early to say, especially as the bill hasn’t even been passed yet, although the government parties have a majority in the Bundestag. So it is a dead set that it will be passed. But yeah, I mean, this is a major development in the decriminalisation of cannabis and it could very much be seen as a, sort of as an important precedent in Europe.

Sonja Hutson
Guy Chazan is the FT’s Berlin bureau chief. Thanks, Guy.

Guy Chazan
Thank you.

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Sonja Hutson
You can read more on all these stories at FT.com. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.

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