In Europe today, the biggest military spender is not Britain.
It's not France.
It is Germany.
In the four years since the Zeitungwende, the turning point,
Chancellor Friedrich Merz has vowed that the Bundeswehr will become the strongest conventional army in Europe.
Overseeing part of that mission is my guest today, Lieutenant General Christian Freuding,
one of Germany's most distinguished officers and the chief of the German army.
From our studios in London, I'm Shashank Joshi.
Welcome to Inside Defence.
Lieutenant General Freuding, very warm welcome.
Thank you for joining us here.
Thanks for having me.
It's great to speak to you.
Your official title means you're in charge of Germany's land forces,
and we're going to spend a lot of our conversation on that.
But since you're here,
it would be a shame and a lost opportunity not to ask you at least a little bit about Ukraine,
because you also know this war extremely well from your time as head of Germany's task force on Ukraine.
During this time, as you know, you became something of a social media star.
Thanks to your YouTube briefing videos.