Russian President Vladimir Putin is personally responsible for reducing Europe’s security order to ashes, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Berlin on Friday.
“It’s not like Putin just broke the rules on February 24 and closed the party. He threw the board on the floor,” the president said in a speech at Bellevue Palace.
He stressed that Russia’s cruel and aggressive war against Ukraine has reduced the European security order to ashes.
“In his imperial madness, the Russian president violated international law, seized land, questioned borders. Russia’s attack is an attack on all the lessons the world has learned from both world wars.”
As the German president pointed out, February 24 became a sea change.
“Putin commands an invading army, but the Ukrainians defend their country, which they built since independence 30 years ago. Russia’s aggressive war has devastated [pēdējā padomju līdera Mihaila] Gorbachev’s dream of a ‘common European home’ “, said Steinmeier.” This is an attack on the principles of rights, the rejection of violence and the immutability of borders. This is an attack on everything that we Germans stand for. “
“Those who shrug their shoulders and ask what we Germans have to do with war have neither responsibility nor sense of history. We Germans cannot exist in Europe with such an attitude. It is wrong,” Steinmeier stressed.
