Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky has further hardened his already ramshackle tone this weekend. He lashed out at European leaders who had been too pleased with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Former Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy were especially hard hit.
Zelensky accused Germany and France of having blocked Ukraine’s accession to NATO since 2008, and on Sunday evening invited Merkel and Sarkozy to come and see for themselves in Butya, so that they could see for themselves ‘what a fourteen-year concessions to Russia’. Zelensky: ‘They can then see the tortured Ukrainian men and women themselves.’
Fourteen years ago, in Bucharest, the leaders of the NATO countries decided not to give Ukraine and Georgia the formal status of aspiring NATO members. It was established that the two countries would ‘become members of NATO’, but behind that sentence was the reluctance to actually do so. At the time, it was reportedly mainly Germany and France that blocked the accession of the two countries – so as not to offend Russian President Putin, Zelensky said.
Grey area
At the time, according to Zelensky, NATO missed an opportunity to pry Ukraine out of the gray zone between Europe and Russia, a gray area in which Putin believed he could do whatever he wanted. The velvet gloves of Europe have encouraged him to do what he is doing now, the Ukrainian president said. After this ‘miscalculation’ Ukraine endured ‘a revolution, eight years of war in the Donbas and now we are fighting for our lives in the most horrific war since World War II’.
He then invited Merkel and Sarkozy, noting that he did not blame the West for what had happened: ‘We don’t blame anyone except the Russian armed forces who did this to our people. And those who ordered them to do so.”
Merkel has so far remained silent, but has now said through a spokesman that she still stands behind the 2008 decision not to admit Ukraine to NATO. It does, however, support all international efforts to end the war. “In light of the atrocities manifesting itself in Butya and elsewhere, all efforts by the German government and the international community to support Ukraine and end Russian barbarism and war have the full support of the former Chancellor Merkel’s spokesman said.
Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki also believes that it is precisely Merkel’s soft policy that Russia has become so strong. He compared Putin to the old dictators of history: ‘No one has ever negotiated with Hitler, with Stalin or Pol Pot.’ He also bluntly called the atrocities in Ukraine ‘genocide’. Influenced by Merkel’s politics, Europe — and Germany in particular — has become so dependent on Russian oil and gas that Russia can blackmail the EU with it, Morawiecki says. That is why, according to him, ‘clear and determined sanctions’ are now needed, because the current sanctions are not sufficient.
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