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Training of the Landwehr in Kiev: "100,000 helmets and protective vests" are urgently needed for the volunteers
Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has summoned the German Ambassador to Ukraine, Anka Feldhusen, because of controversial statements by a German military officer.
It is about the "unacceptability of the statements made by the Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, Kay-Achim Schönbach," according to a letter from the ministry.
Among other things, it is about his statement that "Crimea will never return to the stock of Ukraine and that our state will not meet the membership criteria for NATO," it said.
In addition, Ukraine again complained that Germany did not want to supply any defense weapons to the country: "We express our deep disappointment at the position of the German government regarding the non-granting of defense weapons to Ukraine."
At an event in India, naval inspector Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach said, among other things: "The Crimean peninsula is gone, it will not come back." In 2014, Russia annexed the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea.
Defense Minister Lambrecht: "Weapons deliveries would not be helpful at the moment"
Ukraine had also repeatedly asked Germany for arms deliveries.
The federal government has so far stuck to its clear no.
Federal Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) told the “Welt am Sonntag”: “Weapons deliveries would not be helpful at the moment – that is the consensus in the federal government.”
The Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba had also criticized Germany's position with regard to his country's conflict with Russia on Twitter. "Germany's current statements are disappointing," he wrote in the short message service. This contradicts the aid provided since 2014, for which Kiev is grateful. "Now more than ever, the unity of the West towards Russia is important." In order to rein in Russia, "considerable efforts together" would be necessary, said Kuleba. The German partners must stop "undermining this unity with their statements and actions."
The Ukrainian ambassador in Germany, Andriy Melnyk, told the "Handelsblatt" that his country currently needs "urgently 100,000 helmets and protective vests for the volunteers who are currently signing up for the Landwehr to defend their homeland together with the armed forces". Berlin announced that it would bring a field hospital to the ex-Soviet republic in February.
Meanwhile, the United States is preparing a new NATO maneuver amid the severe tensions.
According to US information, the exercise in the Mediterranean called "Neptune Strike 22" is scheduled to begin next Monday and last twelve days.
The US aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman will also be involved in this.
Military maneuvers from both sides
US Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said the maneuver was not related to fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
"The exercise is not designed for the type of scenarios that could take place with a view to Ukraine." The maneuver has also been in the planning for a long time.
Russia had previously announced various naval maneuvers with a total of 140 warships over the next few weeks in the Mediterranean, Pacific and Atlantic.
Several exercises are already underway on Russian territory.
The Ministry of Defense in Moscow referred to training in the Voronezh region on the border with Ukraine on Saturday, where the use of flamethrowers was practiced.
The United States and its western allies have been demanding a withdrawal of Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border for weeks.
In return, Moscow is demanding security guarantees and an end to the eastward expansion of the western military alliance NATO.
Efforts to ease the tension have been in full swing since last week, but have so far produced no tangible results.
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Just hours after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Geneva on Friday, the US sent new military aid to Ukraine.
On Saturday night, a US cargo plane landed at an airport in the capital Kiev, according to the US Embassy there.
There were 90 tons of cargo on board, including ammunition "for front-line defense."
More deliveries should follow.
Russia has repeatedly called for Ukraine not to continue to build up arms because this would fuel military tensions and could encourage the country to attack Donbass in the east of the ex-Soviet republic in order to take back the breakaway parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned against violating his country's borders in a speech on Unity Day on Saturday.
"Let's preserve the independence and unity of Ukraine."
No evacuation of US embassy staff for now
Most recently, the Kremlin sharply criticized the delivery of light anti-tank weapons from Great Britain to Ukraine. The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania now also want to send US-made anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft systems to the ex-Soviet republic bordering Russia.
Responding to reports that the U.S. government is directing families of embassy staff in Ukraine to begin evacuation Monday, the U.S. State Department said, "We have nothing to announce at this time." that US citizens in Ukraine could not count on a government-sponsored evacuation campaign if attitudes towards embassy staff and relatives changed.
"Commercial flights are currently available to support departure," it said simply.
Most recently, the Russian Foreign Ministry had cautiously commented on US media reports about an alleged evacuation of Russian diplomats and their families from Ukraine: "The Russian embassy in Kiev works routinely," it said in Moscow.
mamk/dpa/AFP