"Highly dangerous" situation: Scholz invites to Ukraine summit - SPD expert sees Belarus "militarily connected"

Created: 02/10/2022, 11:12 am

By: Sven Hauberg

A Ukrainian soldier stands at the dividing line with pro-Russian rebels in the Donetsk region.

© Andriy Dubchak/picture alliance/dpa/AP

Diplomatic initiatives are being launched in Berlin to defuse the situation on the border with eastern Ukraine.

Meanwhile, a prominent SPD foreign politician warned that Putin was “further upgrading”.

• Chancellor Olaf Scholz invites you to a veritable marathon of Ukraine talks on Thursday (February 10).

• A meeting in the Normandy format is planned, and heads of government and states from the Baltic States are also guests.

• Before the talks start, a warning comes from the Bundestag: SPD foreign expert Michael Roth assesses the situation in Ukraine as "extremely dangerous".

Berlin - The situation in the east of Ukraine * is still "fire dangerous" - at least that's how the SPD foreign politician Michael Roth assessed the situation on the border with Russia on Thursday morning (February 10) in the ZDF "Morgenmagazin".

In order to defuse the tense situation in Ukraine, a real diplomatic marathon will take place in Berlin on Thursday.

First of all, a second round of talks in the so-called Normandy format* is to take place in the federal capital.

Involved: foreign policy advisors from Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine.

The aim is to "reduce differences of opinion" and bring about a de-escalation in the Ukraine conflict, said Deputy Government Spokesman Wolfgang Büchner.

Scholz launches a diplomatic offensive in the Ukraine conflict - Normandy meeting in Berlin

The Russian head of state Vladimir Putin "continues to arm itself," said Roth, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Bundestag.

"We have around 120,000 combat-ready soldiers on the Russian-Ukrainian border, and now there is also the fact that Russia has effectively joined Belarus militarily." Russia and Belarus want to officially start joint military maneuvers on Thursday.

According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the exercises should be larger than usual this time.

The Normandy format was launched in 2014 to settle the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

The mediation between Russia and Ukraine by Berlin and Paris led to the Minsk Agreement of 2015. However, Kiev and Moscow regularly accuse each other of violating the agreement.

Ukraine crisis: Scholz meets with Baltic states

The Russian troop build-up on the border with Ukraine is also causing concern in the three Baltic countries.

On Thursday evening, therefore, Chancellor Olaf Scholz* wants to meet in Berlin with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins.

Before the meeting in the Chancellery, Kallas spoke out in favor of supplying Ukraine with weapons to defend against Russia.

“It is up to each country what kind of help it wants to offer Ukraine.

We think it is very important to help Ukraine in any way we can," she told dpa.

"Estonia is ready to provide arms and ammunition to help Ukraine, in cooperation with our allies, defend itself against Russian aggression." All three Baltic states oppose the commissioning of the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline and advocate a hard line towards Russia, with which they share a common border.

Ukraine crisis: Russia's ambassador warns against eastward expansion of NATO

There are also diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis* at other levels.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will first meet the outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels on Thursday morning and then travel to Poland to discuss the situation with President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is also in Moscow, where she called on Russia to immediately withdraw its troops from the Ukrainian border.

Meanwhile, Russia's ambassador to Germany, Sergey Nechayev, has reiterated that his country has no interest in a military conflict with Ukraine.

"We don't want this conflict to break out under any circumstances," he told the newspapers of the editorial network Germany.

At the same time, he accused NATO of broken promises and warned against a military build-up in Ukraine.

NATO should not be expanded to the east and should not continue to arm itself in the vicinity of Russia.

Nechayev also called for the "return of NATO's military-technical infrastructure to the level it had in 1997, when we signed the Russia-NATO Founding Act."

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