Germany will allocate an extraordinary 100 billion euros to equip its armed forces and will make an annual investment of more than 2% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Defense, the German Chancellor announced today.

In an extraordinary session to analyze the situation in Ukraine after the Russian invasion, Olaf Scholz stressed the need for an "efficient, state-of-the-art, advanced" army to protect the country from, among other threats, those posed by Vladimir Putin's Russia, reports Efe.

The amount of defense investment is higher than what the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) is asking for, the chancellor added, reports Agence France-Presse.

"From now on we will, year after year, invest more than 2% of our GDP in our Defense," he told the chamber of deputies.

The German army has suffered from under-equipment for years. The announcement was met with applause by the deputies.

Source: Lusa