“Take off Russian glasses”
Ukraine wants billion-euro aid package from Scholz
2/12/2022, 9:57 p.m
Chancellor Scholz has so far ruled out arms deliveries to Ukraine. An aid package worth billions to stabilize the economy would also be a start, says the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany.
The Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, hopes that Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s forthcoming visit to Kiev will give bilateral relations a new start – and investment guarantees. Ukraine wants to be an equal partner and not a supplicant, he said in the “Interview of the Week” according to Deutschlandfunk. They want to speak at eye level without the Germans repeatedly showing consideration for Russia out of fear. It is time for German politics to take off the Russian glasses when it comes to Ukraine.
Scholz plans to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kiev on Monday. On Tuesday he will travel to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ukraine wants Scholz to announce a billion-euro aid package in Kiev to support the stability of the Ukrainian economy, said Melnyk. The federal government must assume political guarantees for German investments in Ukraine. In addition, Berlin should launch a program to lower interest rates for Ukrainian companies to stimulate the economy. Melnyk also reiterated Ukraine’s demand for German arms supplies and called for support in Ukraine’s desire to join the EU.
In view of Russian troop deployments near the Ukrainian border, the United States had warned on Friday that a Russian invasion of the neighboring country might possibly take place as early as next week. Moscow has been rejecting such plans for weeks. It is also considered possible that the Kremlin wants to create a threatening environment in order to enforce its own security requirements.
Among other things, Russia is demanding an end to the eastward expansion of NATO and, in particular, a waiver of Ukraine’s possible inclusion in the western military alliance. In the phone call with Macron, Putin once once more criticized the fact that both NATO and the United States have so far ignored core Russian concerns, it said. The West, on the other hand, argues that every state is free to decide which alliance it wants to belong to.