Dhe President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen has made it clear that the member states will remain united behind Ukraine. Friends, allies and partners of Ukraine understood from the start how serious the situation is, von der Leyen said at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday. “We will continue to be united,” she said.
She called Russia’s attack on Ukraine “Putin’s imperialist plan” and said it was absolutely unacceptable. “Putin is trampling on international law,” said von der Leyen. The West will never accept that tanks are sent to neighboring countries. Everything must be done so that the rest of the world – especially the so-called global South – does not suffer excessively from Putin’s war. However, she stressed that the West, especially the European Union, needs to invest more in defense and the arms industry.
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin fully agreed. Your country also stands behind Ukraine and will support it “as long as it is necessary”. The war is not only a problem for Europe, but for the whole world. Russia is violating all the agreements and rules that it once signed itself. If nothing is done about it, there will be imitators in the future. Marin underlined that her country’s goal is still to join NATO together with Sweden, but she cannot influence how individual countries vote.
The first day of the security conference on Friday was marked by the appearances of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron. At the beginning of the conference, Selenskyj was a guest in Munich via video link – last year he had come to Munich in person shortly before the Russian invasion of his country. He demands more weapons so that his country can win the war this year. Olaf Scholz, in turn, appealed to western states to supply Ukraine with more tanks, and Emmanuel Macron called on the EU to consider a nuclear component of defense.