Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Melnyk: Germans can afford to ignore the interests of Kiev
Andrey Melnik. Photo: Ukrainische Botschaft in Berlin / Facebook
Representatives of the German authorities in behind-the-scenes conversations often ignore the interests of Kiev, Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andriy Melnyk complained about indifference in an interview with the Ukrainian Prism Center.
As the diplomat noted, Germany “possibly and by right” is a great cultural nation. According to him, for Ukraine this means that the Germans can afford to ignore “legitimate interests or requests” from other states, including Ukraine, and they do this very often.
“And we are faced with this, unfortunately, literally every day, when you come somewhere to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or another ministry, department of the Chancellor, express your position, your arguments, make a request,” Melnik said, noting that the results of the words Kiev is ignored.
He said that the Ukrainian diplomats had no choice but to bring certain issues “on the public plane”. According to the diplomat, Germany lives “according to the old standards and patterns,” when “everything is done secretly, in closed offices,” and decisions that are important are made non-publicly in a narrow circle.
Earlier, Melnik became disillusioned with the new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. In his opinion, Ukraine will not wait for the provision of weapons from Berlin. At the same time, according to him, the provision of weapons to Kiev for self-defense would strengthen the position of Germany and to advance the mediation mission, which is currently “at a dead end.”
