Is the EU just a joke for Putin?

Bitter thesis at "Illner" - guest from Russia gets angry

Created: 2022-02-04 10:59 am

The talk show on "Maybrit Illner" (ZDF).

© ZDF (Screenshot)

Maybrit Illner debates the Ukraine crisis.

Martin Schulz and Norbert Röttgen have a bitter message - and a discussant from Russia is almost upset.

"Putin doesn't want to have anything to do with the European Union," says former SPD chancellor candidate Martin Schulz in the ZDF talk by Maybrit Illner*.

Russia "doesn't take us seriously," he stated somewhat bitterly.

The CDU foreign affairs expert Norbert Röttgen, who was also present, nodded eagerly.

It is of course about the still smoldering Ukraine-Russia conflict.

"Maybrit Illner" - these guests discussed with:

• Omid Nouripour

   (Bündnis '90/Die Grünen) - party leader

• Martin Schulz

   (SPD) - Chairman of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation

• Dr.

  _

  Norbert Röttgen

   (CDU) - Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag

• Kateryna

  Mishchenko -

  Ukrainian publisher, connected from Kiev

• Dr.

  _

  Wladislav Below -

  Director of the Center for German Issues and Scientific Director of the Europa Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow

• Prof.

  _

  Ulrike Franke -

  Expert for German and European defense policy at the research institute and think tank European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), connected from London

In view of the upcoming visit of Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz* in Washington, and then also in Moscow via a stopover in Kiev, Illner should investigate the question: What is Germany's attitude?

And if so, how many?

The group also disagrees about this.

Key word: military support.

Germany refuses - as it did in the legislatures under Angela Merkel - to deliver arms to Ukraine and instead invokes the "weapon of diplomacy" to bring Russia to reason.

Or as Illner puts it somewhat pointedly: "Create peace without weapons?".

Schulz is certain that Germany has a better hand as a negotiator than the European Union.

According to Schulz, Vladimir Putin* is currently using the European "quarrels" to further "split" the EU, citing the current "separate agreement" as an example, that Putin decided to spend the days with Hungary's head of state Viktor Orbán on cheaper gas supplies.

Green MP Nouripour on Nord Stream 2: "Dirty deal" with Russia

Illner wants to know from Schulz: "Who actually came up with the idea of ​​these 5000 helmets?" The German helmet delivery had caused discontent in the Ukraine.

Kiev's Mayor Vitali Klitschko even called it a "joke".

Illner: "Didn't anyone think that it could be a bit embarrassing?"

Schulz declines.

It is not the time to "talk about the arms delivery, but about ways to calm down diplomatically".

The member of parliament and leader of the Green Party, Omid Nouripour, sees it differently: The "mood in Kiev" is: "The Germans are not helping us", "abandon us" and would instead "make dirty deals with the Russians" with the gas pipelines. .

Union colleague Röttgen finds this “a bit unfair”.

With 1.8 billion euros, Germany is “by far the most reliable, most extensive and largest supporter in different areas of Ukraine”.

In addition, the Federal Republic has "special opportunities for talks with Moscow" - arms deliveries would lose trust here.

Schulz agrees.

He doesn't see how "the tense situation can be eased with a delivery of arms to Ukraine."

But Röttgen can also understand Ukraine's fear: "Since 2014, around 14,000 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine," he describes the human suffering. "War" is definitely taking place on the eastern border* and Ukraine has both "politically as well as morally the right to defend oneself".

Röttgen can only speculate about Putin's interests.

On the one hand, Ukraine is not a threat to Russia, and Ukraine's accession to NATO has been "clearly ruled out" in the foreseeable future.

Röttgen suspects that Putin is disappointed that Russia no longer represents an imperial power* in Europe.

He was worried about his power, because “around him” more and more countries were striving for democratic self-determination.

Germany expert rails against talk guests from Moscow: They do not recognize the reality

Visibly annoyed, the Russian Germany expert Vladislav Below, who was connected from Moscow, calls out from his monitor and tries to speak several times.

When he is finally allowed to speak, he cannot hold back his biting irony: Putin is only concerned about discussions in a "Hollywood studio" into which "advisers are invited who actually do not know reality".

According to Below, the Russian head of state is concerned with defending Russian security interests and cites the stationing of medium-range missiles by NATO in Romania, Poland and the Baltic States as a threat, which could wipe out a city like St. Petersburg in a matter of minutes.

The conflict was also preceded by "a compelling invitation from the Americans to start negotiations," says Below.

It is all the more astonishing how "the collective West" always misunderstands Russia's interests and portrays Putin "as an aggressor who wants to win additional territories".

Ukrainian appeals to Russia in the talk show: Let us be alone!

Maybrit Illner* objects that Putin has denied Ukraine the right to its own state.

She inquires about the views of Below's wife, who is from the Ukraine.

Below claims that the connection was drawn incorrectly: Putin does not question Ukraine's independence, but also wants to see the neighboring country's two-ethnic statehood and the interests of many Russian Ukrainians - mixed families like his own - protected.

The Ukrainian publisher Kateryna Mishchenko from Kiev, on the other hand, makes it clear what Ukraine wants: “We don't want a war!

We want to build up our country”, which has chosen the “democratic path”.

And: "Russia should leave us alone".

Conclusion of the "Maybrit Illner" talk

The talk made it clear that the crisis surrounding Ukraine also reveals German and European weaknesses.

One thesis: the saber-rattling should give Putin better chances of negotiation.

Germany, on the other hand, is primarily on the side of NATO and Nord Stream 2 will certainly be a counterweight at the negotiating table.