UKRAINE’S PRIME MINISTER Denys Shmyhal brought Kyiv’s plea for more weapons to Germany on Sunday, saying his country needed additional help in its battle against Russia.
Shmyhal is the first high-level Ukrainian official to visit Germany in months, in a sign of eased tensions between Kyiv and Berlin after a rocky patch.
The first stop on his trip was a meeting with President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, where Shmyhal “discussed the military situation, strengthening sanctions and the need to provide weapons for Ukraine”, he said on Twitter.
Shmyhal, who will meet Chancellor Olaf Scholz later today, also thanked Germany “for solidarity with Ukrainians and support”.
Germany will “continue to stand reliably by Ukraine’s side”, Steinmeier reassured Shmyhal, according to the German president’s spokeswoman.
The Ukrainian prime minister’s visit marked a sharp change in tone, after a row erupted in April when Kyiv rebuffed Steinmeier’s offer to travel to Ukraine.
Steinmeier, a former foreign minister from Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), had been shunned over his years-long detente policy towards Moscow — something which he has admitted was a mistake following the outbreak of war.
‘Special responsibility’
Germany’s SPD has historically championed close ties with Russia, born out of the ‘Ostpolitik’ policy of rapprochement and dialogue with the then Soviet Union, devised by former SPD chancellor Willy Brandt in the 1970s.
That tradition contributed to Germany initially refusing any weapons deliveries to Kyiv, with a previous decision to send only 5,000 helmets sparking anger and mockery.
But Scholz’s coalition, which also includes the Greens and liberal FDP, has since made a sharp u-turn.
Howitzers, rocket launchers and anti-aircraft missiles are among the weapons that have arrived in Kyiv.
Heavier weapons like the IRIS-T anti-aircraft systems, rocket launchers mounted on pick-ups and anti-drone equipment are due in a further military aid package worth over €500 million.
Ukrainian soldiers are currently being trained in Germany to use the anti-aircraft Leopard tanks.
Ahead of his trip, Shmyhal said that Germany “has made huge progress in its support of Ukraine with weapons.”
But the Ukrainian prime minister also stressed that Kyiv needs more from Berlin, including “modern combat tanks” like the Leopard 2.
In a speech on his vision for Europe on Monday, Scholz said he saw Germany taking on “special responsibility” to help Ukraine build up its artillery and air defence systems.
Germany, he added, will maintain its backing for Ukraine for “as long as it takes”.
On the humanitarian level, Germany has taken in almost a million Ukrainian refugees, with some 155,000 Ukrainian children now enrolled in German schools.
Ahead of Shmyhal’s trip, Scholz’s coalition partner the Greens, traditionally known as pacifists, said Germany wants to “boost” its armament deliveries to Ukraine.
“Military means never bring the solution, but it sometimes creates windows of opportunities in which conflicts can be politically resolved in a rules-based world order,” the party’s leadership said in a motion put forward for consideration at its next congress.
Russia sanctions not working: Italy far-right leader
Meanwhile, the leader of Italy’s far-right League party, Matteo Salvini, sparked debate today by saying that the unprecedented sanctions the West had imposed on Russia over the Ukraine invasion aren’t working.
“Several months have passed and people are paying two, three, even four times more for their bills,” he told RTL radio. “And after seven months, the war continues and Russian Federation coffers are filling with money.”
Skyrocketing energy prices since the start of the war in Ukraine have inflicted economic pain on countries in the European Union which before the war had been reliant on Russia for a large chunk of its gas supplies.
Salvini later doubled down on his comments during a debate at an economic forum being held in Cernobbio, northern Italy.
“We need a European shield” to protect businesses and families, as during the Covid pandemic, Salvini told delegates during the forum.
“If we want to go ahead with the sanctions, let’s do it, we want to protect Ukraine — but I would not want that to mean that instead of harming the sanctioned, we harm ourselves,” he said.
A day earlier he had tweeted that “those who have been sanctioned are winners and those who put the sanctions in place are on their knees”.
“It’s evident that someone in Europe has made a bad calculation. It is essential to rethink the strategy to save jobs and businesses in Italy,” he said.
Following Salvini’s comments, Enrico Letta, leader of the Democratic Party and one of his main adversaries ahead of parliamentary elections on September 25 retorted on Twitter: “I think (Russian President Vladimir) Putin couldn’t have said it better.”
He later told reporters on the sidelines of the forum on the banks of Lake Como that they were “irresponsible” statements which “risk causing very serious damage to Italy, to our reliability and to our role in Europe”.
“When I hear Salvini talk about sanctions, I feel like I’m listening to Putin’s propaganda.”
Links between Salvini and Moscow have raised concerns in Italy, particularly since the invasion of Ukraine.
But Giorgia Meloni — the far-right prime ministerial hopeful whose Brothers of Italy party has formed an alliance with Salvini’s anti-immigration League — has taken a clear position in favour of support for Ukraine and sanctions on Russia.
“If Italy lets go of its allies, for Ukraine nothing changes, but for us a lot changes. A serious nation that wants to defend its interests must take a credible position,” she told delegates in Cernobbio.
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