Steinmeier: “Putin destroys the foundations of the European peace order.”
The Federal President, Frank Walter Steinmeier, affirmed today that Russia’s offensive and invading war against Ukraine represents the “rupture of an era” and recognized that the project of a common European home has been frustrated, on the occasion of the 77th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe and the capitulation of Nazi Germany. Until now, the anniversary of May 8 was not only a day of memory and warning, for “a long time” it has also been “a day of hope”, said Steinmeier, who stressed that “today, on this May 8, the dream of a common European home has failed and in its place we live a nightmare’.
“We are all shocked and irritated by the offensive and brutal war, violating international law, which has been carried out for more than two months by a great nuclear power against a sovereign and democratic country in Europe,” said the German president in an intervention on the occasion of the opening of the federal congress of the German Confederation of Trade Unions (DGB). The war in Ukraine supposes “a break with much of what seemed natural to us. It is the rupture of an era”, commented Steinmeier, who stressed that the war threatens the existence of Ukraine at the same time that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, “definitively destroys the foundations of the European peace order that we had built after the Second World War and the end of the Cold War.
The federal president once again acknowledged having made a mistake when assessing Putin and Russian politics. “This war forces us to accept painful realities. We were too sure that peace, freedom and well-being are something natural”, said Steinmeier, who went on to emphasize that “he had not believed it possible that in the end the Russian president would assume in his imperialist madness the political, economic and moral ruin of his own country”. He recalled that the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, is one of the fathers of the concept of the “common European home”, but affirmed that, with the failure of that approach, this anniversary of May 8 is unfortunately “a day of war”. .
Germany is now “at the side of Ukraine, with full conviction and wholeheartedly, together with our European neighbours”, said the German head of state, for whom it is important that “we Europeans are not divided again by aggressive nationalisms and racial hatred. He also stressed that for this reason Putin’s statements to justify his aggression and the comparison of the fight against National Socialism with “his brutal offensive war against Ukraine that violates international law” “squeak” in German ears. For the Federal President of Germany, Putin’s statements are “a perfidious and cynical manipulation of history.”
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