Status: 08/28/2022 09:27 am
The conflict between the Ukrainian ambassador Melnyk and Saxony’s Prime Minister Kretschmer is well known. Now it has escalated. Melnyk withdrew an invitation to the CDU politician.
The outgoing Ukrainian ambassador Andriy Melnyk has invited the Prime Minister of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, to visit Ukraine. “With your absurd rhetoric about freezing the war, you are playing into Putin’s hands & fueling Russia’s aggression,” Melnyk wrote on Twitter. He once invited the CDU politician to Ukraine. “This invitation is cancelled. You are UNWANTED. Period.”
Melynik referred to a broadcast on Markus Lanz’s ZDF talk show on Wednesday. There Kretschmer again called for the war in Ukraine to be frozen. At the same time, the CDU politician clearly condemned the Russian war of aggression in the program.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. Since then, the attacked country has resisted the invasion and tried to regain territories conquered by Russia.
Kretschmer had already attracted attention in the past with his statements about Russia and Ukraine. He demanded that Germany mediate in the war between Russia and Ukraine. “I’m not counting on a military victory, that’s not my path,” he said at a discussion in Dresden in July. Kretschmer also repeatedly pointed out that Germany still needed Russian raw materials.
Controversial Positions
In his party, however, he is largely alone with his positions. CDU leader Friedrich Merz has distanced himself from Kretschmer’s statements on Russia in the past. Politicians and experts recently rated Kretschmer’s attitude as naive and incomprehensible. In the past, there was approval from the AfD and parts of the Left Party.
As ambassador to Germany, Melnyk was repeatedly criticized because he did not always pay attention to diplomatic customs and used harsh words to promote arms deliveries to Ukraine. In the meantime, Melnyk has been recalled. He will leave Germany in October and will take up a new post in the Foreign Ministry in Kyiv.