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Germany’s conservative opposition leader left for Kyiv on Tuesday for meetings with Ukrainian officials, including President Vladimir Zelensky, as Chancellor Olaf Scholz has indicated he will not visit Ukraine soon.
Scholz has been swarming with Ukrainian officials in recent weeks over Kyiv’s refusal to invite German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whom Ukraine accuses of giving in to Russia when he was foreign minister.
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“It can’t work that a country that provides so much military aid, so much financial aid … then you say the president can’t come,” Scholz told public television ZDF late Monday.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Berlin, Andriy Melnik, responded on Tuesday, calling Scholz’s refusal to visit “not very stately”.
“This is the most brutal war of extermination since the Nazi invasion of Ukraine, not a kindergarten,” he said.
The chairman of the German Christian Democratic Party (CDU), Friedrich Merz, on the right, hugs Halina Yanchenko, a member of the Servant of the People political party, in Irpin, Ukraine, on Tuesday, May 3, 2022 (AP Photo / Efrem Lukacki). )
German opposition leader Friedrich Merz, who heads former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right alliance, visited the city of Irpin on the outskirts of Kyiv to see the destruction caused by the Russian army.
Speaking to reporters amid the shelling, Merz expressed his “complete admiration” for the Ukrainian military for stopping Russia’s offensive near Irpin, and promised to help rebuild the city.
The German daily Bild reported that Merz later met with Zelensky for an hour at his presidential office. Merz’s visit to Kyiv comes days before two German state elections in which his Christian Democratic Union hopes to retain power.
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The Union bloc joined Germany’s three ruling parties in a non-binding vote in support of heavy weapons supplies to Ukraine last week. German media reported that the government plans to approve additional weapons for Ukraine soon, including large self-propelled howitzers.
Critics, especially from the far left and right, have challenged the supply of weapons to Ukraine, saying Germany risks being embroiled in a conflict with Russia.
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German authorities say they have registered the arrival of some 400,000 refugees from Ukraine since the start of the war.
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