Ukraine’s ambassador demands tougher sanctions from Germany and an energy embargo against Russia
The Federal President of Germany, Frank Walter Steinmeier, has intoned the “mea culpa” again today by reaffirming his self-criticism for the failed policy against Russia during his time as Foreign Minister in the government of former Federal Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and harshly criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin for the offensive war in Ukraine. A day after publicly admitting his past mistakes in relations with Russia, Steinmeier acknowledged on television on Tuesday that “under Putin there will be no return to normality” and questioned whether Russia will ever have a future in Europe. “The saddest thing is that we have failed on many points,” commented the German leader, valuing the West’s efforts to integrate Russia into a common security architecture in Europe and support the country on the path to real democracy.
The president of Russia has become “a war provocateur locked in his bunker”, Steinmeier affirmed on ZDF, the second channel of German public television, before which he reiterated that “it was an error of assessment to think, also I, that a Putin of the year 2021 would not be able to assume the political, economic and moral ruin of his country in favor of his imperialist madness». The German president also acknowledged that his efforts as foreign minister between 2005 and 2009 and between 2013 and 2017 to develop a peaceful relationship with Russia have failed. “We have not been able to stop the development that has now taken place and that has been unloaded in this war,” commented the German head of state, who also admitted that “we should have taken the warnings of our partners in Eastern Europe more seriously” .
Above all, Berlin’s staunch defense of the project for the Russian-German “Nord Stream 2” gas pipeline was a mistake, “because it has cost us a lot of credibility among our European partners,” said Steinmeier, who a day earlier had also confessed that during the 16 years of Angela Merkel’s government «we defended bridges in which Russia no longer believed and against which our partners had warned us. For the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, the confession of the German head of state about relations with Russia is only a “first step”. «For us, the important thing now is that words are followed by deeds. And those facts are still missing, “said Melnyk, whose severe criticism of German policy towards Russia and the role played in it by Steinmeier gave rise to the latter’s reaction.
«I would like, like many of my compatriots, that the federal president not only shows that repentance now, but that as head of state he demands that the federal government draw its conclusions from the Bucha massacre and other atrocities that we experience day and night in Ukraine» Kiebv’s ambassador in Berlin told the Deutschlandfunk radio station. In that sense, Melnyk demanded from Germany more severe sanctions against Russia and a total energy embargo. He also stressed that “we believe that we should reflect on what has happened in Germany over the last more than two decades, not only politically, but also in society and the media” and stated that the question is to analyze how Germany has been able to do almost totally dependent on Russia in terms of energy policy. “That dependency is now being paid for by Ukraine with the suffering of civilian casualties,” Melnyk said.
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