Germany's foreign minister has drawn criticism over her latest unannounced visit to Ukraine to pledge support for the radical regime against Russia.
Annalena Baerbock arrived in Kiev by train on Monday, where she pledged the Social Democrat-led coalition government's support for President Volodymyr Zelensky's ambition of European Union (EU) membership.
Readers of one German daily newspaper expressed their anger and frustration at the Greens party member's latest junket to the Ukrainian capital in the comments section of the news report.
"She is a disgrace to Germany. This has never been seen before," one wrote. "Taxpayers continue to pay for her trips where she only makes a statement and doesn't want to use diplomacy," said another.
"Perhaps Baerbock should stay in Kiev. Apparently, this woman can do more for Ukraine than for her own country," a comment read, while another suggested that "it would be better if she stayed there and became the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine."
Alternative for Germany (AfD) spokesman Bundestag (parliament) member Markus Frohnmaier laid into Baerbock and her fellow Green, Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck for putting other countries' interests before their own.
"The German government doesn't care about its own citizens. Baerbock and Habeck are only concerned with foreign and economic policy interests abroad," Frohnmaier said.
His AfD partymate and MP Petr Bystron asked why the foreign minister was "still sitting in the Bundestag, and not in the Ukraine?"
Die Linke (The Left) party MP Sevim Dagdalen said Baerbock should leverage her close relationship with dominant NATO member the US to lobby for charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, still languishing in a British prison awaiting extradition, to be dropped.
"It's good that Baerbock can work with broad support from the media, culture and politics during her talks in the USA to ensure that Julian Assange no longer remains in prison and is finally released — she just has to do it," Dagdalen tweeted.
Another Twitter user wrote that the German minister's concern for the welfare of Ukrainian civilians was unjustified.
"Baerbock wouldn’t swan into Kiev unless it was safe and there was no Russian invasion," he posted.