Defence & Security

Ukraine: the opposition years

Fact No part of Wadephul's record is more prominent than his advocacy for military support to Ukraine. In April 2022, when the Scholz government was under pressure over heavy weapons, he dismissed the Chancellor's offer of additional funding as a "distraction manoeuvre", called Scholz partly responsible for Ukraine's defencelessness and demanded that he finally deliver.

Einen Aggressor ermutigt man mit Zögern.

In May 2023 he told the Tagesspiegel that there was no justification, in international law or politics, for preventing Ukraine from using German weapons against targets in Russia. From 2023 the central issue became the Taurus cruise missile, which Germany possesses and Ukraine requested. In the Bundestag debate marking ten years of Russia's war on 22 February 2024, Wadephul asked what exactly the great problem with delivering Taurus was. CDU/CSU motions to supply the missile were rejected by the governing majority several times in 2024.

Criticism His Taurus advocacy also produced an embarrassment. In early February 2025, Russian pranksters known as "Vovan and Lexus", posing as aides to President Zelensky's office, published a roughly twenty-minute call in which Wadephul suggested that, if the Union won the election, Ukraine would probably have to wait until around May for Taurus. His office called the publication a targeted disinformation campaign, and he filed a criminal complaint.

Ukraine: in office

Fact As minister, Wadephul has kept Ukraine at the centre of his agenda. He took part in an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Lviv on 9 May 2025, three days after taking office. His first visit to Kyiv as minister, on 30 June 2025, was made by night train with a delegation from the defence industry — a signal that support was increasingly about production and industrial cooperation, not just transfers from existing stocks. On 22 August 2026 he made an unannounced fourth visit, travelling for the first time deep into eastern Ukraine.

In 2026 President Zelensky awarded him the Ukrainian Order of Merit, second class, for consistent support of Ukraine and for championing reliable security guarantees. The award drew some comment in Germany because Defence Minister Pistorius had received the first class in 2024.

Deterrence and the Kaliningrad warning

Position Wadephul's security thinking rests on deterrence: that Russia must be convinced an attack on NATO territory would fail. In his statement before the Munich Security Conference in February 2026 he described Europe as facing an existential challenge from Russia and put his approach in one sentence.

Growing military strength and committed diplomacy are our most important security resources.

Fact In July 2026 he made the threat concrete for an audience far from Europe. Speaking to students in Johannesburg on 24 July, during a visit to South Africa — a country that has declined to condemn Russia's invasion — he said that Russia had deceived Europe for years and remained an existential threat.

The Iskander missiles that Russia has deployed in Kaliningrad would need only a few minutes to reach Berlin.

Analysis The choice of venue is telling. Wadephul used a visit to a leading member of the Global South to explain why Europeans regard Russia's war as a direct security issue rather than a distant regional conflict. It is an argument German diplomats have found difficult to win in capitals that prefer non-alignment.

The National Security Council

Fact On 27 August 2025 the federal cabinet established a National Security Council, chaired by Chancellor Merz, as a forum for coordinating foreign, defence, interior and economic security policy. Wadephul is a member. Germany had long been one of the few large Western democracies without such a body; proposals had circulated for years, including during the previous government's work on a National Security Strategy.

Within the Foreign Office, the restructuring Wadephul announced in November 2025 created a new Security Policy department, alongside departments for EU policy and geoeconomics and for the Americas, taking effect in summer 2026. The same reform foresees cutting about 570 posts by 2029 and dissolving the Stabilisation Department.

Analysis A council chaired from the Chancellery inevitably shifts some weight away from individual ministries, including the Foreign Office. Whether it strengthens or narrows Wadephul's influence depends on how it is used in practice, which public sources do not yet show in detail. Critics of the Foreign Office reform, notably from the Greens and the Left, have argued that the cuts to humanitarian and stabilisation capacity weaken the civilian side of security policy at the moment it is most needed. The ministry's place in the system is described in German foreign policy.

European defence cooperation

Position Wadephul argues that Europeans must take on more responsibility for their own security — "Now is Europe's moment", as he put it on a panel with Mark Rutte and Ursula von der Leyen in Munich in February 2026. He has worked closely with France and Poland in the Weimar Triangle format, meeting Jean-Noël Barrot and Radosław Sikorski at the Warsaw Security Forum on 29 September 2025.

The Eurofighter decision on Türkiye

Fact One concrete case of European defence-industrial policy touched his portfolio directly. In October 2025 the German government cleared negotiations over the sale of Eurofighter Typhoon jets to Türkiye, a step for which German consent within the multinational Eurofighter programme was required. Visiting Ankara for talks with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on 17 October 2025, Wadephul told NTV that delivery could follow quickly once an agreement was signed.

I think this will happen in a short time. I think it could happen this year.

On 27 October 2025 the United Kingdom and Türkiye signed a contract for 20 Typhoons. Criticism Arms exports to Türkiye have long been contested in German politics because of concerns over human rights and Ankara's regional policies; supporters of the decision emphasised Türkiye's role as a NATO ally and the importance of a functioning European defence industry.

Assessment

Analysis Wadephul's security record is marked by consistency of conviction more than by novelty. The arguments of his opposition years — keep commitments to allies, do not reward an aggressor by hesitating, invest in the means of defence — have carried over into office, sometimes at the cost of friction with the coalition partner. What has changed is the toolkit. As Foreign Minister he works through alliance diplomacy, export decisions, sanctions, diplomatic expulsions and the new National Security Council rather than through parliamentary motions.

Two open questions will shape how this record is judged. The first is delivery: whether the spending path agreed in The Hague translates into a more capable Bundeswehr within the time frame NATO has set. The second is balance: whether the emphasis on hard security is matched by sustained civilian instruments — humanitarian aid, stabilisation, conflict prevention — at a time when the Foreign Office's own budget is under pressure. Related debates are gathered in the overview of major political issues.