Pressure is mounting on Germany over its response to the war in Ukraine, as Kyiv has snubbed the country’s president and Chancellor Olaf Scholz is accused of a weak response to the crisis.
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he was planning to travel to Ukraine with other European heads of state and government to show solidarity, but “that was obviously not wanted in Kyiv”.
Steinmeier’s comments on Tuesday during a visit to Poland came after German newspaper Bild quoted an unidentified Ukrainian diplomat as saying he is currently not welcome in Kyiv because he has had close ties with Russia in the past.
The snub comes as former Foreign Minister Steinmeier has been criticized at home and abroad for years of detente towards Moscow, which he has now admitted was a mistake.
In the Polish capital of Warsaw, Steinmeier said he planned to travel to Kyiv this week with the presidents of Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania “to send a strong signal of common European solidarity with Ukraine”.
“I was willing to do this, but apparently, and I have to acknowledge this, it was not wanted in Kyiv,” he told reporters.
Bild quoted an unnamed Ukrainian diplomat as saying: “We all know about Steinmeier’s close ties with Russia here… He is currently not welcome in Kyiv. We’ll see if that changes.”
A German government delegation was due to travel to Ukraine on Tuesday, news agency AFP reported, citing a source.
Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann of the FDP, Michael Roth of the Scholzer Social Democrats and Anton Hofreiter of the Greens met with MPs in Ukraine’s parliament in the west of the country, the source allegedly confirmed, confirming a report in Spiegel magazine.
But after visits by several other leaders in recent days, including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, critics have asked why Scholz himself is not arriving.
Scholz is exposed to criticism
Ukraine’s Ambassador to Germany Andriy Melnyk said a Scholz trip to Kyiv would send a “strong signal” while the opposition CDU urged him to “get an idea of the situation on the ground”.
Strack-Zimmermann, a member of Scholz’s government coalition, also suggested in an interview with the business newspaper Handelsblatt on Monday that he should “start using his managerial and managerial staff”.
The chancellor has also come under criticism for her refusal to send heavy weapons to Ukraine, despite its dramatic about-face in German defense policy prompted by the Russian invasion.
Germany had been reluctant to send arms to Ukraine for historical reasons, but it has now sent anti-tank weapons, rocket launchers and surface-to-air missiles in response to the conflict.
Steinmeier admits past mistakes
Steinmeier, a social democrat in his second term as German president, was foreign minister in two governments of former Chancellor Angela Merkel. He has long been known for his pro-Moscow attitude.
He is one of the leading proponents of the concept of ‘change through trade’, which argues that fostering close trade ties can help spur democratic reforms.
Steinmeier also campaigned for the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, which has now been stopped because of Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine.
Steinmeier recently admitted that his overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin had failed.
“I still hoped that Vladimir Putin would have some sanity,” he said weekly in an interview with Der Spiegel.
“I did not think that the Russian President would risk the complete political, economic and moral ruin of his country in pursuit of an imperial delusion.”
He added that his own endorsement of Nord Stream 2 was “clearly a mistake”.
But he said that with Putin’s Russia “there can be no return to normal” in Warsaw on Tuesday, along with Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda, adding that the West must bear the cost of the conflict.
He accused Russia of “war crimes” in Ukraine and called on Moscow to allow residents to be evacuated from the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol.