Andri Melnik, Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, has come under criticism in recent days for not distancing himself from Ukrainian nationalist and anti-Semite Stepan Bandera. Now President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has fired him. The question is: did Melnik serve his country’s cause or rather harm it?
The Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andri Melnik, has regularly caused controversy.
The dismissal of Andri Melnik, which was announced by the Ukrainian Presidential Office on Saturday, did not come as a surprise. At the beginning of the week, several German media wanted to know that the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany would be moving to the Foreign Ministry in Kyiv in the fall – possibly to become Deputy Foreign Minister. This is not mentioned in the decree signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky. In addition to Melnik, the Ukrainian ambassadors to Norway, the Czech Republic, Hungary and India were also dismissed. Reasons or a future use of the diplomats were not initially mentioned.