German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has responded to critics of his Ukraine policy, saying Berlin would continue to show “maximum solidarity” with Kiev, but not be ordered around into pursuing policies that “harm” Germany or its allies “more than Russia”.
“At the same time, we won’t simply do everything that one side or the other demands. Because I swore in my oath when taking office that I would prevent Germans from suffering any harm”, Scholz said in a televised address to the nation Sunday commemorating the 77th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s surrender in World War II.
The chancellor boasted about “far-reaching and difficult decisions” made in recent weeks to support Ukraine, including “unprecedented” sanctions against Russia, assistance to refugees “with open arms”, and German weapons deliveries.
Scholz stressed that Berlin “will not make any decision which will turn NATO into a party in the war. It will stay that way”. He also expressed confidence that “Ukraine will survive” and “freedom and security will triumph”.
The chancellor made no mention of any plans to visit Kiev. Scholz’s domestic critics and officials in Ukraine have repeatedly attacked him for his refusal to travel to the country, and over Berlin’s rejection of an economically ruinous embargo on Russian energy, as well as delays in the delivery of German heavy weapons to Kiev.
Last week, Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andriy Melnyk sparked a diplomatic flap with his host country by attacking Scholz over his refusal to visit Kiev and saying that “playing an offended liverwurst sausage doesn’t sound very statesmanlike".
German lawmakers responded by calling on Melnyk to apologise or leave Germany.
The ambassador has refused to apologise, saying Berlin’s “fairy tales” about weapons assistance to Kiev, not his “liverwurst sausage” jab, should be the headline in the story. The envoy complained that even “little Estonia” had done more than Germany when it comes to arms deliveries to date.
Scholz said Ukraine’s snub of Frank-Walter Steinmeier in mid-April was “standing in the way” of his own visit to the country. Steinmeier took a trip to the region last month, visiting Warsaw and the Baltic countries, but cancelling a planned trip to Kiev after being informed that he was not welcome over his alleged “close ties to Russia”.
The Ukrainian ambassador – long criticized as a “pain in the ***” among German political circles in private, got booed during a trip to a memorial to fallen Soviet soldiers on Sunday in Berlin’s Tiergarten, with people chanting “Melnyk, out!” and “Nazis, out!”
Amid the raging tensions across over Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, Melnyk got off comparatively easy, with Russian Ambassador to Poland Sergei Andreev and his aides drenched with blood-red syrup on Monday while trying to lay a wreath at a cemetery of Soviet soldiers in Warsaw.