He even invited the former chancellor to visit the devastated Kiev suburb to see for herself, the Ukrainian president said, "where the policy of concessions to Russia over the past 14 years has led."
Fourteen years ago, then Chancellor Angela Merkel and then French President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke out against Ukraine's membership of NATO at the NATO summit in Bucharest so as not to provoke Russia. Today, President Zelensky calls the decision a "miscalculation" that has brought Europe "the worst war since the end of World War II."
The Merkel government has ruled out imposing sanctions on Russia even after the 2014 annexation of Crimea and gave the green light to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which bypasses Ukraine. "How else can we interpret this stance other than tacit acceptance of a violent border shift by Moscow?" asks Henning Hof of the German Foreign Policy Association.
Never before has a Federal President been so strongly criticized by an ambassador
Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andrzej Melnik, in an interview with the Tagesspiegel newspaper, accused the current Federal President and then Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier of treating "the relationship with Russia as sacred, regardless of what happens, where even an aggressive war does not play an important role." Never before in Germany's post-war history has the country's first citizen been so strongly criticized by a foreign ambassador.
The criticism is not about individual politicians, but about German foreign, security and trade policy over the past 30 years. Ukrainian Ambassador Melnik sums up: "Too much dialogue and too little toughness towards the Kremlin."
Andrew Melnick's assessment is shared by political scientist Stefan Birling from Regensburg University. Speaking to DW he states: "Since Putin became president, good, frictionless relations with Russia have been more important than the fate of Ukraine. It was this attitude that ultimately encouraged the Kremlin to invade Ukraine.
In a similar style of policy towards Beijing
German policy towards China follows the same pattern, writes Stefan Birling: "Flattery for economic gain, naive ideas about liberalising an empire from abroad, concessions to respect for democratic values and human rights in order not to upset the powers that be in Beijing." European governments and Washington have for years criticized Germany's policy towards Russia and China. But Berlin was unmoved until the Russian military invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Federal President Frank Walter Steinmeier publicly admitted Tuesday after Ukrainian Ambassador Melnik's criticism of "wrong assessments," such as on the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which damaged Germany's credibility.
According to expert Henning Hoff, the goal now should be: rapid decoupling from fossil fuels, the upgrading of Germany as a major military player in line with its weight in NATO and EU structures, and a "common European policy towards Russia and China."
Source: DW
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