The cheetah is the world’s fastest animal and can reach a speed of up to 70 miles an hour. If Germany’s Gepard (“Cheetah”) anti-aircraft tanks had traveled at that pace, they would have finished the 1,100-mile journey to Ukraine in about 16 hours. Instead it took three months for the first three Gepards to arrive in Ukraine on Monday, after Berlin said in April it would send them.

What a disgrace for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the global stage, and what a political embarrassment at home. Even Berlin’s announcement of this military aid came two months into Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Mr. Scholz’s main strategy, if that’s what it is, has been to delay the tanks and other heavy weapons, presumably in the hope that a negotiated settlement at some point would make them moot.