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DENorbert Röttgen, a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Presidium and chairman of the German Bundestag’s Foreign Affairs Committee, has supported the idea of providing Ukraine with lethal weapons, Ambassador of Ukraine to Germany Andriy Melnyk posted on his Twitter page.
According to him, Mr. Röttgen became the first influential German politician who officially supported such an idea.
On Saturday, 24 April, Germany’s authoritative newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine reported that Kyiv had asked Berlin to give it used German corvettes. However, newspaper sources claim that Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany Heiko Maas opposed this.
Meanwhile, Minister of Defence of the Kingdom of Sweden Peter Hultqvist said on the air of the SVT TV channel that Russia’s announced withdrawal of troops from the Ukrainian border and their return to permanent deployment bases is a smoke screen. He added that the Russian government could “increase and decrease tensions” in the region depending on its interests.
Hultqvist also accused Moscow of escalating the conflict in eastern Ukraine and creating an “extremely tense situation.”
At the same time, Minister of National Defence of Poland Mariusz Błaszczak said on the air of Polish Radio 24 that President of Russia Vladimir Putin’s policy is aimed at restoring the Russian Empire.
According to Błaszczak, developments on the Russian-Ukrainian border have caused concern in Poland. He recalled the words of the late President Lech Kaczyński: “First it comes to Georgia, then Ukraine, then the Baltic states, and then, possibly, Poland.”
According to him, that is why Poland is now modernising its army and increasing its number.
Bohdan Marusyak
