LEIPZIG, Germany (Portal) – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany’s priority in helping Ukraine should be to help it defend against Russian airstrikes on its cities and rebuild its infrastructure.
He added in an interview with RND newspapers on Friday that Europe should prepare to take in more refugees from Ukraine, which has been fighting a Russian invasion since February 24.
“Russia is bombing Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Russia wants to make sure that people in Ukraine don’t survive the winter cold,” he said in a stage interview. “We are currently discussing with many German companies what they can do to counteract this destruction.”
The air defense systems that Germany has sent to Ukraine have so far played a key role in minimizing destruction, but Germany will work with partners to send more, he added.
Scholz had previously agreed in a telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Germany would continue to send air defense systems.
Scholz told the audience he was convinced that, despite the diplomacy Western leaders had used in the run-up to the Russian invasion to avert war, President Vladimir Putin was already on course.
“I am convinced that Putin decided this war two years ago,” he said. “We saw the troop build-up… We hoped it was just threatening gestures, but it wasn’t: it was a long-planned war.”
(Reporting by Andreas Rinke in Leipzig, writing by Thomas Escritt; editing by Matthias Williams and Sandra Maler)