Several interviews every week, peppered with criticism and disappointment at Germany’s support for Ukraine. Kiev’s ambassador Melnyk is a very undiplomatic diplomat. His PR work for German arms deliveries caused applause at home, but shook heads in Berlin.
On Thursday, the Ukrainian ambassador Andrei Melnyk was finally able to get through to the federal government once again. Not quite, but at least up to the parliamentary group of the co-governing Greens: their parliamentary group leader, Katharina Dröge, and foreign policy spokesman, Jürgen Trittin, received the Ukrainian Minister of Economics and Deputy Prime Minister Julia Swidrinko and Rostislaw Schurmna, Deputy Head of the Office of the President, together with the ambassador .
It is Melnyk’s most important task to organize German support for his homeland threatened by a Russian invasion. And from Kiev’s point of view, support primarily means military equipment and training for its own armed forces. “We are convinced that arms deliveries cannot contribute to de-escalation now,” Dröge explained afterwards to ntv.de. However, the meeting was important “to emphasize once again that we stand firmly on the side of Ukraine,” said Dröge, referring to proposals to deepen bilateral relations.
It is unlikely that the Ukrainian delegation was entirely satisfied. Because with what has come from Germany so far, at least Melnyk is more than dissatisfied. When an article earlier this week asked “What is Germany doing for Ukraine?”, the diplomat tweeted the headline and immediately responded with “nothing”. Melnyk later deleted the tweet, after all, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was visiting Kiev at the same time and his employer, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, was trying to create a picture of unity between his country and its western partner. Nobody in Berlin should expect Melnyk to try to adopt a friendlier tone towards Germany in the future.
For months, the diplomat, who has been seconded to Germany since 2014, has been by far the most prominent ambassador in the German media. He attaches little importance to the classic customs of diplomacy. Instead of listening behind the scenes to the ears of the key decision-makers, the 46-year-old seeks out the public and doesn’t mince his words, either on the microphone or on Twitter. Melnyk does PR for a country that is threatened by a major military power through no fault of its own. The self-confident lawyer gives a face to his home country, which many Germans can hardly think of anything about.
Anyone who is not with us is against us
Last Sunday, Melnyk was able to do that in front of Anne Will’s audience of millions. Before the show started, the ambassador’s wife, Svitlana Melnyk, drummed on Facebook that her husband would venture into the lion’s den. The studio guests – SPD general secretary Kevin Kühnert, Greens foreign politician Jürgen Trittin and left parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch – are “frankly pro-Russian politicians”. Friends of Ukraine, the Melnyks see it, should also side with the country and be prepared to deliver arms – especially Germany as the world’s fourth largest arms exporter. But if you don’t do that, you’re not a friend in this reading, but “pro-Russian”.
The fact that Ambassador Melnyk places his demands for arms deliveries in the public domain is also due to the feeling that he would otherwise go unnoticed. He is not always admitted to the federal government. When asked by ntv.de, the Federal Foreign Office asserted that Melnyk’s statements were noted “on all channels” and that the exchange with him was close. When the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag, SPD politician Michael Roth, asked the Ukrainians to discuss controversies “behind closed doors” in an interview with ntv.de, Melnyk made it public on Twitter that Roth had so far ignored his requests for appointments had been.
On the other hand, big politics is not made at the level of ambassadors either. The really important communication – especially in acute crises like the current one – takes place directly between the capitals, as an experienced German diplomat explains to ntv.de in an interview. Whether Melnyk’s unconventional approach was coordinated with Kiev or is more due to helplessness in the face of the Russian threat is difficult to assess.
“One or the other clear head shake”
In fact, what really matters in Kiev is that Melnyk has managed to make his voice heard in Germany. There is no immediate evidence for the estrangement between Melnyk and the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, which is being rumored by parts of the federal government. On the contrary: as late as December 2020, a Ukrainian think tank named Melnyk’s representation the country’s most productive embassy. The fact that Melnyk will be working in Berlin for almost eight years and did not have to rotate sooner also indicates that the permanent presence of the ambassador in Berlin is being recognized at home. Apart from the pro-Russian media, Melnyk gets a lot of praise at home.
But politicians who are friendly to Kiev are also warning: Johannes Schraps, a member of the Bundestag and the SPD rapporteur responsible for Ukraine among other things, leaves no doubt that he sees Russia, with its more than 100,000 soldiers on the Ukraine border, as the sole responsible aggressor holds. Nevertheless, a certain incomprehension about the choice of words by the Ukrainian ambassador can be seen: “I can see one or the other clear shake of the head among my colleagues in the Bundestag when Germany’s international reputation and role as a reliable partner are attacked in such a way by statements by the Ukrainian ambassador become,” says Schraps.
“I also got the impression that Ambassador Melnyk overshot the mark with some of his recent statements.” Germany has supported Ukraine like no other country in recent years – “not only financially, but also, for example, in setting up a modern administration,” said Schraps. “It would be a pity if this aid were underestimated, while on the other hand some reform commitments by the Ukrainian government were implemented only slowly.”
No public dissent with Kiev
Dealing with the Ukrainian government is a balancing act for the federal government. Berlin sees the country as acutely threatened and wants to prevent further attacks on Ukrainian territory and on the Ukrainians’ right to self-determination by Putin’s armed forces. Public criticism, which could create the impression that there is a dissent between Kiev and its western partners, is therefore avoided as far as possible. At the same time, the federal government knows that the government in Kiev will also have to move to ease the conflict in the eastern rebel areas.
The Minsk 2 agreement, for example, stipulates that Kiev should no longer block economic relations and payment transactions with the breakaway regions. In addition, the self-proclaimed rebel republics of Donetsk and Luhansk are to be granted a special constitutional status that will give them more autonomy. This would effectively cement Russia’s permanent codetermination over a large part of the country, which is why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has so far avoided such an unpopular step.
Many Ukrainians see further losses of territory after the annexation of the Crimean peninsula as a threat to their statehood. That’s why Melnyk’s activities are not just about arming his country and obliging the West to show solidarity. Melnyk wants to create awareness in Germany that Ukraine is a nation in its own right, towards which the federal government bears just as much historical responsibility as towards Russia.
Ukraine wants to be seen
For years, Kiev has been demanding that the Bundestag recognize the millions of Ukrainians who died from starvation in the 1930s as a genocide committed by the Soviet Union – so far in vain. Federal Foreign Minister Baerbock visited the Holodomor memorial in Kiev on Monday, but then had to be publicly warned by her counterpart Dmytro Kuleba that Germany should finally classify it as a genocide.
In addition, Melnyk repeatedly argues for a separate memorial to be erected in Berlin for the National Socialist crimes against the Ukrainians. In the German culture of remembrance, the Ukrainian victims have always been included as part of the German crimes in the Soviet Union. Melnyk therefore boycotted a commemoration ceremony to mark the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union with Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier last June. It was a minor scandal. Melnyk “didn’t make many friends” with this behavior, says a former diplomat. The media echo could be heard as far away as Kiev.