Zelenski after meeting with Scholz in Berlin: “We can make Russia’s defeat irreversible this year”
The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Selenski, and the German Chancellor, the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, gave a joint press conference in Berlin this Sunday after a meeting in the Chancellery. “Now is the time for us to set the end of the war this year. We can make the aggressor’s defeat irreversible this year,” said Zelenskyy, who thanked Germany for its €2.7 billion military support package just a day after Berlin announced its biggest weapons.
Zelenskyi told Scholz that Ukraine will always be grateful to Germany for its support during the Russian invasion of the country, which began on February 24, 2022. He has also asked the chancellor to back a coalition with other partners to supply planes to Kiev for modern combat, a question Scholz, for his part, has dodged.
Scholz has defended that Zelenski’s visit to the German capital, the first since the beginning of the war, sends a “strong signal” regarding the support that both Berlin and its other Western partners continue to give to Kiev “during the war”. The German chancellor has also defended that his country will join other allies in trying to “hold Russia accountable for its crimes”.
Scholz has also stated that Ukraine is ready for peace, but that cannot mean freezing the conflict and accepting a pact dictated by Russia. “Russia must withdraw its troops, there is no other way,” added the Chancellor.
Zelenskyy insisted on this idea. According to him, Kiev is ready to discuss a peace proposal that ends the Russian invasion, but it should be based on Ukraine’s own position and peace plan.
Kiev has repeatedly dismissed any idea of making territorial concessions to Russia, insisting that it wants every square inch of its territory back. However, Moscow has declared the annexation of four Ukrainian provinces – Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia – in addition to the Crimean peninsula, whose annexation was announced in 2014 and opposed by the international community.
The Ukrainian President also stated that his country believed in the success of a counter-offensive by his army against Russian troops that had already been prepared this spring. In fact, in recent weeks international expectation has increased regarding the launch of a new Ukrainian counter-offensive, after Kiev’s previous counter-offensive, launched at the end of summer 2022, managed to recapture areas that were under the control of Russian troops, such as the city of Kherson , the only provincial capital the Kremlin was able to capture early in the invasion.
Zelenskyy’s visit to the German capital also comes a day after his meeting in Rome with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the President of the Republic of Italy Sergio Mattarella and the Pope. Before meeting the German Chancellor, the Ukrainian head of state met with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at Bellevue Palace in Berlin. (Portal / EL PAÍS)