Ukrainian President Zelensky calls for a UN Security Council meeting and says he is willing to meet with Putin
NATO and the European Union responded from Munich to the new provocation by Vladimir Putin – the launch of missiles accompanied by the Belarusian dictator, Alexandr Luckanshenko – with an almost unprecedented display of unity, while the president of Ukraine, Volodímir Zelensky, demanded a meeting of the UN Security Council in the face of the desperate situation in his country.
The Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and on behalf of the United States, its Vice President, Kamala Harris, launched their warning messages this Saturday to the leader of the Kremlin, at the Security Conference in the Bavarian capital.
“Russia is looking for an excuse to invade Ukraine,” Stoltenberg noted, while Von der Leyen claimed that Moscow “is trying to impose a new world order.” Germany “will be subject without restrictions to Article 5 of the NATO Treaty,” which obliges it to defend any ally in the event of aggression against its territory, Scholz assured. “If Russia invades Ukraine, we will respond with sanctions of unprecedented economic cost,” Harris said.
The common message was that NATO, like the EU, will defend “inch by inch” its territory, in the words of Stoltenberg, which is already being demonstrated with the reinforcement of its eastern flank, recalled Harris.
Ukraine is not part of the Alliance, which for Scholz justifies the refusal to supply it with weapons, in accordance with Germany’s line of not supplying it to conflict regions. But at the same time, Germany is the main contributor to the financial aid that Ukraine receives, to which other countries do supply weapons, argued the foreign minister.
The Munich Security Conference, an informal forum created in 1963 and which year after year brings together leaders from around the world, is being held this time without Russian assistance for the first time in decades, which highlights the tense moment for the through relations between the West and Moscow.
Willing to stand up for herself
The counterpoint to the diplomatic language of the representatives of NATO, the EU, Germany or the US was put by the Ukrainian president, Zelensky. “The West must stop being content with trying to appease Russia,” he claimed. Ukraine is ready “to defend itself, even if the allies do not,” he added, referring to Scholz’s mention of Article 5 of the NATO Treaty by which his country is outside the sphere of response of that military organization.
Zelensky’s, who called for a UN Security Council meeting and said he was willing to meet Putin, was a much more emotional intervention than the messages from Western leaders. The objective of his visit to Munich was not only to ask for help in the nearly 30 minutes of his speech, but his main interest was in the meetings held in parallel, behind closed doors, with Harris or the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, which does not deny arms supplies to Kiev.
The Security Conference, which continues this Sunday, opened on Friday with a debate between the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, and the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken. The ‘green’ Baerbock, defender of a much more critical line towards Moscow than the Social Democrat Scholz, was confronted with an interpellation from the mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitscho – a former boxing champion who lived in Germany and is a very charismatic figure in that country. –, who from the audience recalled that Ukraine needs more than 5,000 military helmets –the only German contribution– to defend itself.
It was almost a cheap shot to German diplomacy which, like the West as a whole, seems to be moving in a loop. Its leaders speak to each other daily and the communiqués follow one another, but the de-escalation that the German Scholz or the French Macron have sought in their meetings with Putin does not occur.
#West #exhibits #cohesion #dissuasive #language #Munich