Russia talk by Anne Will
“Germany must wake up from its slumber”
By David Needy
2/7/2022 1:07 am
“We’re easy prey for Putin,” says Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany in “Anne Will,” describing the dramatic situation in his homeland. The ARD talk round is looking for the answer to the question of whether arms deliveries or sanctions will help – and only finds a dilemma.
For the Ukrainian ambassador in Germany, the situation is clear: “We have to realize that we are on the verge of a huge war in Europe,” says Andriy Melnyk on “Anne Will”. On Sunday evening, the ARD talk show is all about the question of how the federal government should react to the escalation in the crisis area with more than 100,000 Russian soldiers on the border with Ukraine. Melnyk again clearly demands arms deliveries. Deliveries that Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz dismissed a few hours earlier in an ARD interview before the start of his trip to Washington, Kiev and Moscow.
“The federal government must wake up from its slumber” and finally “recognize the seriousness of the situation,” Melnyk demands action from Scholz, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Co. Talk host Will would like to know what if the chancellor comes to Kiev empty-handed. “Germany is at a crossroads,” explains the ambassador. “It’s a matter of peace or war, there is no middle ground.” If no weapons were delivered, Germany would abandon the Ukrainian population.
“What scares more?”
As representatives of the government parties in the panel discussion, SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert and Jürgen Trittin, foreign policy spokesman for the Greens in the Bundestag, do not want to come across as tired or even asleep. Her party colleagues have been speaking out against arms deliveries for weeks, and Kühnert, the former Juso boss and the figurehead of the left-wing SPD, vehemently affirms that Germany is still a safe partner. “Germany stands closely on the side of the Ukrainian people,” Scholz and Baerbock were “crystal clear.” But: “There are no arms deliveries to crisis areas.” Trittin adds: “Should Putin really intend to attack Ukraine, weapons would not deter him.”
But the seriousness of the situation is acknowledged, says the Green veteran, feeling slightly sleepy and listless. After all, the ceasefire is already being broken and fighting in the border areas of Ukraine every day. However, there is disagreement over the question, “What is more deterrent?” As NATO partners ship war equipment to Kiev and the US sends thousands of troops to Europe, Trittin believes economic and political sanctions, the threat of “severing economic and political ties with Russia,” are more likely to deter Moscow from invading.
For Kühnert, too, the kidnapping that Vladimir Putin is taking Ukraine is primarily of an economic nature and that is why the country’s economic independence is “much more important”. Neither politician put concrete steps – even the end of Nord Stream 2 – on the table. Melnyk and ARD correspondent in Moscow and Kiev, Ina Ruck, on the other hand, report that there is a real fear of war on the ground, with civilians receiving combat training in the forest. “We are easy prey for Putin,” says Ukraine’s ambassador.
When it comes to the difficult question of the German government’s right reaction to Russia, Anne Will repeatedly tries to include an outside perspective and therefore switches several times to the Washington-based American-Polish historian and journalist Anne Applebaum. “Anyone who is arming Ukraine is for peace,” she says, criticizing Germany’s “indecisiveness.” Ukraine must be given a chance to defend itself and the price Russia has to pay in the event of an invasion must be raised. Therefore, says Applebaum – quite wide awake – there must be “an economic and a military price” – and also specifically mentions the threat to end Nord Stream 2.
“Germany uses the excuse of history when it suits”
Talk host Will then confronted the historian with a video clip in which Foreign Minister Baerbock talked about “historical reasons” that prevented arms from being delivered to Ukraine. “I find that disturbing,” explains Applebaum, after all, Baerbock didn’t explain what story she actually meant. The reality is also as follows: The federal government does business with Russia and China despite their human rights violations and German weapons are repeatedly sold to regimes that take part in wars. Another appeal to awaken from the Sleeping Beauty slumber.
“Germany uses history’s excuses when it’s convenient,” criticizes Applebaum. If Baerbock meant the Nazi era, then one must also consider that there was also a German invasion of Ukraine, with the Third Reich “removing Ukraine from the map.” That’s exactly what Putin wants now, says Melnyk. The Ukrainian ambassador is calling on the Germans to “rethink critically” about the delivery of weapons to crisis areas.
Background: The federal government is fighting against arms deliveries to Kiev, but it is the world’s fourth-largest arms exporter. Among other things, arms exports to Egypt worth more than four billion euros were approved in 2021 alone, even though Cairo has been guilty of human rights violations in the past and participated in the war in Yemen and Libya. The arms export report by the Federal Ministry of Economics for the past year also revealed that the former federal government also approved deliveries to Afghanistan, Israel, Iraq, Yemen, Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Trittin, who still appears sleepy, confirms to Anne Will that Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck is still working on an arms export control law for this year, but the federal government is in a quandary when it comes to the Ukraine war. What is missing in the US is a sign from Berlin that an invasion of Russia would not be accepted, says Applebaum. In the Ukraine, too, reports correspondent Ruck from Kiev, people long for a symbol that Germany is “on the right side.”
What really deters Russia more, weapons or economic and political sanctions, of course, remains unanswered after the ARD talk show. Olaf Scholz now has to broadcast the symbol of democracy, the form of government that Putin both fears and hates, for Europe and against aggression in the USA, Ukraine and Russia. Sleeping beauty sleep or not.