Baerbock: “Submission is not peace”
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has accused Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin of jeopardizing Russia’s future with the war against Ukraine. “The Russian president is risking the future of his own country,” the Green politician said on Friday at a special session of the UN Security Council in New York on the first anniversary of the Russian invasion. “This war is not the war of the Russian people. This war is Putin’s war.” A just peace is also in the interests of the people of Russia.
Beyond Ukraine, the war brought death and destruction all over the world, said the minister – “not directly through tanks and bombs, but through the food crisis”. Referring to Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebensya, who stayed away from her speech, Baerbock said: “I have no illusions: we will not convince the Russian representative today. He doesn’t even listen.” She added: “What we can do is stand up for a world where peace means peace.”
Peace “must not mean that we ignore who is the aggressor and who is the victim”said Baerbock. “Because submission is not peace.” Not naming the aggressor means accepting a world where the strongest rule. Furthermore, not standing by the victims’ side would mean “a world in which none of us could sleep peacefully, fearing an attack from our stronger neighbor”.
“Where would Ukraine, which voluntarily gave up its nuclear weapons because it believed in peace, be today if we hadn’t defended its right to self-defense?” asked the minister. “Can we imagine what it would mean, more buchas , Kharkivs, Mariupols, more Bakhmuts, more atrocities against civilians?”