The guests on the ZDF talk show with Markus Lanz on Wednesday evening once again dealt with the war in Ukraine. It was also about the attitude of the SPD to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The SPD foreign politician Ralf Stegner had a very difficult time.
The ZDF talk show with Markus Lanz is recorded a few hours before it is broadcast. There it was once again about the war in Ukraine. The report about the bombing of the railway station in the capital Kyiv burst into the broadcast. It was not yet known whether people were killed or injured. However, many refugees may have gathered there to take the opportunity to leave the city by train. Before
The UN General Assembly had sharply condemned the invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine by a very large majority. In Munich, around 45,000 people also demonstrated against the war in Ukraine in the evening. The organizers had expected around 5,000 demonstrators, said a spokesman for ntv.de. Particularly impressive: A large group of children carrying banners with the words “Please let peace win”.
Many politicians gave short speeches. Ukraine’s Consul General Yarmilko Yuriy urged the West to completely isolate Russia. “Believe in our bravery and help us fight,” appealed the diplomat, whose speech brought tears to the eyes of many demonstrators. Meanwhile, food is becoming scarce in Ukraine. Many people are struggling to survive. But her morale is unbroken, reports a journalist at Lanz.
War crimes in Ukraine
The former confidant of ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel, Christoph Heusgen, accuses the Russian President of war crimes in the show. “Firing on civilian targets is forbidden,” says the new chairman of the Munich Security Conference. “This has to go to court.” According to the diplomat, Putin had no hesitation in violating international and humanitarian law. Heusgen explains that Putin has massively upgraded in recent years. In the city of Kaliningrad, the former Königsberg, a launching base for rockets was built, which can also be equipped with nuclear weapons and can reach Berlin within five minutes.
The moderator, who is always on a confrontation course with the SPD foreign politician Ralf Stegner, asks if he is ashamed. Apparently he doesn’t. “The surprise in politics was that Putin is waging this war of aggression, that he has not been persuaded by diplomacy, threats of sanctions or arms deliveries.” Nothing could have stopped Putin from waging this war. If NATO got involved, it would lead to a world war. Nobody could want that.
Heusgen sees it similarly. “Putin is not open to a political solution,” he says. Putin does not want a democratic Ukraine. When he understood that, it became clear to him that it was time to strengthen the country militarily. “What Chancellor Scholz did at the weekend was a turning point.” For Stegner it is now important that there is a ceasefire in Ukraine as soon as possible. “The goal must be that as few people as possible have to die,” he says.
“Putin has become paranoid”
For diplomat Christoph Heusgen, one reason for Putin’s march-in order is his personality change in recent years. “Putin has become paranoid. He hardly ever sees other people.” Chancellor Merkel has repeatedly tried to pick up Putin in long talks in order to conclude agreements or find compromises. In the end that was no longer possible. “I believe that Putin has built his own world in the last two years. He believes what he says: that Ukraine does not have its own identity, that it allows the West and especially the Americans to exploit it,” says Heusgen.
And then Stegner gets down to business. He is accused of treating Putin too kindly by the SPD. He rejects that. “The thesis that Putin was defended by the SPD is wrong. I exclude Schröder from that.” The former chancellor had already sought a good relationship with the Russian president during his tenure. In 2004 he called ARD Putin a “flawless” democrat “who wants and will make Russia a proper democracy”. Since the end of his term, Schröder has been one of the most important economic lobbyists of the Putin regime and, among other things, chairman of the supervisory board of the Russian state-owned company Rosneft and the Baltic Sea pipeline operator Nord Stream AG.
“Schröder has his merits in the past. What he’s doing now is indecent. You don’t let yourself be paid by a potentate and a dictator who is waging a war of aggression. I think politicians can do more honorable things in their retirement,” says Stegner. However, it is wrong to equate Russia with Putin. “Putin is a lousy dictator, you can’t have any sympathy for that as a democrat.” But you have to get along with Russia. “I have no illusions that Putin will be deposed there in the next two years.”
And in Ukraine? On Wednesday, Kiev’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko called on the whole world to support his country. “We die alone!” he said.