Ukraine puts pressure on Berlin
Germany urged to send weapons to Kyiv against Russia
Ukraine has told Germany to prove itself to be “a true friend” by delivering weapons to help avert the threat of war on its Russian border. The demands came as Kyiv claimed that 275 Russian military vehicles had arrived in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine to support Kremlin-backed forces.
“The Ukrainian people are deeply disappointed. The moment of truth has now arrived to show who our true friends are,” Andrij Melnyk, Ukraine’s ambassador to Berlin, said before a visit by Annalena Baerbock, the German Foreign Minister.
The new German Government has ruled out weapons deliveries to the embattled eastern European country, even as Russia amasses more than a hundred thousand troops on its border.
Asked in December whether she
would consider arms supplies, Baerbock replied that “further military escalation would not bring more security for the Ukraine”.
Melnyk described the German stance as “very frustrating and bitter”, adding that Europe faced the risk of “a huge war, the worst since 1945” in which Ukraine had “a sacred right to self-defence”.
Baerbock will meet Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian President,
before travelling on to Moscow for talks with Sergey Lavrov, President Vladimir Putin’s Foreign Minister.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, also demanded assurances from Germany ahead of the visit, saying that “no business interests and no desire to show understanding for Putin are worth allowing a bloody war in Europe”.
His comments appear to be a veiled reference to Germany’s natural
gas deliveries from Siberia, which are set to be intensified with the imminent opening of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline under the Baltic, which circumvents Ukraine and Poland.
Some analysts say that Germany has made itself open to blackmail by Moscow due to its reliance on Russian gas as a central component of its low-carbon energy strategy.
Germany’s centrist coalition, in power since December, is believed to be at odds over how to approach Russia, with Olaf Scholz, the Chancellor, favouring a “reset” of relations.
He is reported to favour a return to the “Normandy format”, which commits Kyiv to semi-autonomy arrangements in the east of the country that are unpopular with Ukrainians.
His coalition partners, Baerbock’s Greens and the liberal Free Democrats, both favour a harder line against the Kremlin.
Marie-agnes Strack-zimmermann, the Free Democrat party’s defence spokesman, said that Putin “only understands crystal clear statements, including potential consequences”. Strack-zimmermann added: “Putin is testing out how far he can go, he is leading the way and imposing the narrative that we have to concede.”
With the Berlin government sticking to a traditional policy of withholding deliveries of weapons to war zones, the Ukrainians can expect little in the way of military hardware. Germany’s foreign affairs committee has raised the prospect of providing protective gear, such as helmets and bulletproof jackets, to Ukrainian soldiers. — Telegraph Group Ltd