Melnyk at “Maischberger”
“It’s not just about tanks now”
By Marko Schlichting
01/19/2023 02:31 am
The former ambassador of Ukraine in Germany, Andriy Melnyk, demands the delivery of tanks and fighter jets. He hopes that a decision will be made at tomorrow’s Allied meeting in Ramstein. That’s what the foreign politician says on Wednesday evening on the ARD talk show “Maischberger”.
A bloody trench war has been raging in Ukraine for weeks. In the ARD talk show “Maischberger”, the foreign politicians from the CDU and SPD, Norbert Röttgen and Ralf Stegner, argued about further arms deliveries to the country. The main focus is on the main battle tank “Leopard 2”. Most recently, Polish President Andrzej Duda asked Germany to approve their deployment in Ukraine. Chancellor Olaf Scholz did not comment on this at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday evening.
Meanwhile, former Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andriy Melnyk is going one step further. In the ARD program “Maischberger” he reported on Wednesday evening from Kyiv. “We hope that the new defense minister can implement the turning point that was announced more than eleven months ago,” he says. A tank alliance urgently needed to be founded in which Germany, in concert with the European and transatlantic powers, could play an important, if not a leading, role. Melnyk is hoping for a corresponding decision during the Ramstein meeting on Friday tomorrow.
Melnyk continues: “But it’s not just about tanks. We also need newer weapon systems, including fighter jets, which the Germans could supply.” Melnyk is thinking primarily of tornadoes that will be phased out in the next few years. “An alliance of the willing could also be forged there, with the US, France and other states that support us. That could be the decisive point in showing the Russians a red line and ousting them. We hope so.”
He doesn’t know the new Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, says Melnyk. But he knew that Pistorius was a Realpolitiker. “I trust that he can play an autonomous role and that he will implement the decision in April promising heavy weapons to Ukraine. After that it was too often a shell game.”
Melnyk complains of a game of cat and mouse in German arms deliveries. He hopes that Pistorius will “do what we expect of him and that the Germans will support us with all their might, with everything they can.”
Röttgen assumes that the tank issue will be resolved quickly
In the subsequent discussion between the foreign politicians, Norbert Röttgen from the CDU predicts a quick decision on the approval of the tank deliveries: “I dare the tip that the tank question will be clarified on (today) Thursday.” Then the Bundestag will hold a corresponding debate at the request of the Union. In addition, Boris Pistorius is sworn in as the new Minister of Defense. Röttgen does not believe that Scholz will send the new minister into office with this “security policy burden of hesitation”. The isolation of Germany has now progressed so far that Scholz can no longer maintain his negative position.
Whether his SPD colleague Ralf Stegner sees it that way is not entirely clear. Scholz and Pistorius didn’t let anyone influence them, not even the opposition, he says. “We decide together with our allied partners what will happen.” Incidentally, Germany is not isolated internationally either. “It’s a German effort to refuse, and the pressure is increasing,” countered Röttgen. “It’s the wind you make that triggers the pressure,” Stegner reacted, quite annoyed. You just have to look at what has been delivered. First it was the “martens”, then immediately came the demand for the “leopards”. “And what happens next? Will there be a demand for airplanes? And then at some point there will be troops.”
According to Röttgen, the political goal must be to ban war from Europe. This requires military help. “And we will give the Ukrainians what they ask – up to the point that we must not become a party to the war under any circumstances.” That is why an intervention by the NATO countries with soldiers would be out of the question.
Stegner disagrees with this statement. The goal must be an end to the war, which Russia must not win. That only works with diplomacy. “We have to do as much military as necessary and as much diplomacy as possible.” However, Stegner rules out negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He is hoping for pressure from third countries like China, for a “mixture of military aid and other things.”