Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has clearly stated that she wants Ukraine to win the war against Russia. The Greens politician who was on Wednesday evening was asked about the more cautious formulation by Chancellor Olaf Scholz that Russia should not win the war.
“I say that what the Chancellor says is true,” Baerbock replied. “Of course, Russia must not win this war, but must strategically lose it.” Russia is breaking with international law. “They want to destroy the peace in Ukraine. That is why Ukraine must not lose under any circumstances – that means: Ukraine must win”. It must be fought “for every person, for every city”. “We could be, too,” she said.
The Union had targeted Scholz’s choice of words in the Bundestag on Wednesday. Union faction leader Friedrich Merz criticized there that Scholz did not simply say: “Ukraine must win this war.”
In the debate, Scholz again expressed caution about Germany’s foreign policy goals in the war. The goal of the federal government is that Russian President Vladimir Putin “does not win” the war of aggression he started against Ukraine, he said. “Our goal is for Ukraine to be able to defend itself and be successful with it,” he added. “But I want to say explicitly that it is arrogant and it is inappropriate and it is completely out of place when there is a discussion in this country about what Ukraine should rightly decide.”
Baerbock also emphasized in her “Lanz” appearance that the Russian army was also able to thank Germany’s arms deliveries for preventing the Russian army from taking Kiev. “Fortunately, we were able to prevent Putin from wanting to go into the capital and attack the government by initiating arms deliveries as support.” 500 “Stinger” type surface-to-air missiles and 1,000 anti-tank weapons were delivered for the defense of Kiev. The claim that Germany is doing nothing is “absolutely not” true.
At the same time, Baerbock emphasized how important it was to maintain the sanctions imposed on Russia “until Ukraine can live in freedom, peace and security again”. For example, it doesn’t make sense to impose an oil embargo if you need oil again after a few months and reverse the whole thing.
You have to be prepared to support Ukraine “in case of doubt for a very, very long time”. “We mustn’t talk the world nice, we mustn’t be naive: Values and interests must not be played off against each other,” she emphasized.
