Baerbocková ran away from a photo shoot with Scholz after an argument about aid to Ukraine. The moment became a meme

“The chancellor’s arm doesn’t reach that far,” Bild mockingly commented on the picture in which Scholz is reaching for his foreign minister. “She obviously couldn’t be stopped from leaving,” he added.

“The photo of the argument between Scholz and Baerbock over money for Ukraine has become a meme,” reports Nexta, adding a joking collage, for example, with the caption “You can’t have everything.”

In response to the public broadcaster ZDF, Baerbock denied that she had “run away” from the chancellor. According to her, the media misinterpreted the photo. She said that it was a “snapshot” and that she simply did not see the chancellor’s hand. “I don’t have eyes in the back of my head,” she remarked.

The package for Ukraine was promoted by Baerbock together with Social Democratic Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius, who is Scholz’s party colleague. They wanted to provide help even before the early parliamentary elections in Germany, which will take place on February 23.

According to the weekly magazine Der Spiegel, the proposal for the package was compiled in accordance with the requirements of the Ukrainian side. According to Pistorius and Baerbocková, this would be an important signal that German aid to Kyiv will not decrease in the future.

The plan of the two ministers was for the government to ask the budget committee of the Bundestag to push through unplanned spending, arguing that the situation on the front is difficult for Ukrainians and that there is uncertainty about further American aid after Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

But Scholz is against it, justifying it by the fact that he does not want to put the future government in front of a fait accompli. Sources in the SPD also see another reason why Scholz, who is famous for refusing to supply Kiev with German Taurus missiles, is blocking the new aid package: he does not want to antagonize voters who do not agree with aid to Ukraine before the February elections.