Russia-Ukraine conflict: In a statement, artists demand the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops

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Ukrainian soldier in the Donets region, on the Ukrainian-Russian border: "Resolutely oppose Putin's aggression"

Photo: Andriy Dubchak/AP

In a statement available to SPIEGEL, around 350 artists, authors and cultural workers appeal to "those with political responsibility to resolutely oppose Putin's aggression".

"We support dialogue with Russia," it says, "but demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Russian troops from the borders of Ukraine." The letter is headlined "No War!".

The writing was initiated by the poet and singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann, together with his wife Pamela Biermann, the actor Burghart Klaußner and Ulrich Schreiber, the director of the Berlin International Literature Festival.

Signatories include Herta Müller, Wole Soyinka, Ian McEwan, Mikhail Shishkin, Tomas Venclova, Liao Yiwu, Ai Weiwei, Geert Mak, Oskar Roehler and Jürgen Flimm.

It is known that Russian President Vladimir Putin "fights any democratic movement in his own country".

It could therefore "not be silently accepted that, more than eighty years after the Munich Agreement, there were once again open threats in Europe of an invasion of foreign, sovereign territory."

In an interview with SPIEGEL, Herta Müller, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, said that Putin has "been making sure that all Eastern Europeans have to be afraid for years".

The Ukrainians, however, are hit "particularly hard": "Especially the Germans with their history must help the Ukraine," says Müller.

According to US officials, Russia is continuing the massive deployment of troops on the Ukrainian border.

US Secretary of State Blinken recently warned his Russian counterpart against an invasion of Ukraine.

According to the Kremlin, a meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Russian President Vladimir Putin is planned for mid-February.

Both politicians want to hold "substantial" bilateral talks.

ime/dpa