Germany steps up its role in Ukraine crisis
GERMAN chancellor Olaf Scholz yesterday ramped up efforts to stop Russia from invading Ukraine, as Kyiv and Moscow said they saw “positive signals” toward resolving the crisis.
French president Emmanuel Macron, returning from separate talks earlier this week with Putin and Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky, had said on Tuesday he glimpsed a way forward towards easing tensions.
The Russian leader had told him that Moscow “would not be the source of an escalation”, the French president said.
While 100 000 Russian soldiers are still massed near Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said “diplomacy is continuing to lower tensions”.
“The way the greater European community responds to this crisis will determine the future of European security and of each individual European state,” he told reporters.
More upbeat noises also emerged
from Moscow, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling reporters that “there were positive signals that a solution to Ukraine could be based only on fulfilling the Minsk agreements”.
German leader Scholz, who had come under fire at home over his dithering response to the Ukraine crisis, is accelerating his diplomatic pace to reassure allies that Germany would not be the weakest link among allies in standing up to Russia.
Less than 24 hours after his trip in Washington to underline his resolve to US president Joe Biden, Scholz late on Tuesday stood alongside Polish leader Andrzej Duda and Macron to declare
the Europeans’ unity in their goal of averting war on the continent.
The German leader was expected to speak with Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, before dinner with EU chief Charles Michel later yesterday, and today, a meeting is planned with leaders of Baltic nations.
Scholz, who took over from Angela Merkel in December, has been struggling to emerge from behind the veteran leader’s shadows.
His quiet demeanour has at times been drowned out by noisier voices questioning Western allies’ course, including from within his own Social Democrats, leading critics to question Germany’s resolve in the crisis. | AFP