Category: Security policy

Russian missile fire: revealing analysis in the NZZ

In an interesting article, the Neue Züricher Zeitung of Tuesday, 11 October 2022, analysed the missile attack on Ukraine by Russian troops, with which the Kremlin is apparently retaliating for the sabotage attack on the Crimean Bridge near Kerch, which has not yet been attributed to Ukraine, and comes to very revealing conclusions, which are summarised here in brief. Firstly, the effects: in military terms, the failure of parts of the internet could affect the Ukrainian troops, otherwise it is striking that no damage to logistical or command facilities of the armed forces was publicised, but only civilian targets were affected. Fighter jets had not entered Ukrainian airspace.

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Deployment in the Baltic Sea

It has been a week and it is still unclear what the extent of the leak is and who is behind it. The Federal Police and the German Navy are now being deployed to investigate the cause. Their task is to help "gain a picture of the situation". As far as we know, the investigation mission consists of three units. These are said to be the federal police boat "BP 81-Potsdam", a multi-purpose boat with a civilian crew from Eckernförde and a military minehunting boat from Kiel. Divers from the Federal Police or the Navy are said to have found the damage to the pipelines. Last week, the Federal Police issued a request for assistance. As the "Tagesschau.de"...

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Commander of the frigate "Schleswig-Holstein" hands over the baton

On Friday, 7 October 2022 at 9 a.m., the commander of the 2nd Frigate Squadron, Kapitän zur See Torben Jürgensen (46), handed over command of the frigate "Schleswig-Holstein" from Frigate Captain Andreas Mückusch (45) to his successor Frigate Captain Andreas Schmidt (41). Frigate Captain Mückusch took command of the "Schleswig-Holstein", also known as the "Sophie-X", in 2019. "My time in command of the frigate 'Schleswig-Holstein' was certainly the highlight of my 25 years of service as a naval officer. With shipyard time, operational training, deployment and several manoeuvre participations, I experienced an extraordinary amount with my crew. The six-month deployment in the Aegean was particularly formative, with the emotional highlight being the...

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Mrs Corvette Captain, take over...!

Today, Friday, the commander of Training Group C, Frigate Captain Rainer Fankhänel, handed over command to Corvette Captain Victoria Kietzmann as the last commander in a series of command handovers within the Naval Technology School. After two years of training at the Bundeswehr Command and Staff College in Hamburg, Corvette Captain Kietzmann now finds herself in command responsibility with immediate effect. She is the first female commander in the German Navy. The naval technology school at Strelasund is not new territory for the staff officer. As Chief of Inspection, she was already responsible for young soldiers taking their first steps in the German Navy. The honourable task of conducting the ceremonial pledge of allegiance before...

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Old wine in new bottles: faster procurement?

In May 2022, it became known that the Ministry of Defence was working on a draft law to accelerate procurement measures of the German Armed Forces - "in short" the Bundeswehr Procurement Acceleration Act (BwBBG) - and, as the smooth name suggests, the law is intended to "apply facilitations under public procurement law to accelerate the awarding of public contracts", according to a formulation aid from the Federal Government. Observers of the scene quickly recognised that the demands formulated in the draft law essentially provide for the implementation of existing and long-known options - particularly with regard to the public procurement chamber and exemptions from the Competition Act. The Federal Association of the German Security and Defence Industry rightly asked why the "planned increased...

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