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"You a**hole!" How the Ukraine ambassador in Germany fights for weapons with sharp words

2022-03-12T13:54:05.995Z


"You a**hole!" How the Ukraine ambassador in Germany fights for weapons with sharp words Created: 03/12/2022, 14:44 By: Christian Deutschländer Andriy Melnyk, Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany. © picture alliance/dpa | Kay Nietfeld Ukraine's ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, has been putting Chancellor Scholz and his government through the wringer since the start of the Ukraine war. His dema


"You a**hole!" How the Ukraine ambassador in Germany fights for weapons with sharp words

Created: 03/12/2022, 14:44

By: Christian Deutschländer

Andriy Melnyk, Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany.

© picture alliance/dpa |

Kay Nietfeld

Ukraine's ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, has been putting Chancellor Scholz and his government through the wringer since the start of the Ukraine war.

His demands keep getting harsher.

Berlin - This scene would normally destroy the careers of top diplomats, but what is normal in the wake of the Ukraine war?

After a round of talks with the SPD foreign politician Michael Roth, ambassador Andriy Melnyk ran out of the room angrily, cursing that Roth never tells the truth and running away from it.

And then, leaving the revolving door, Melnyk calls out loud: "Asshole".

A reporter from Spiegel

observed this disturbing moment

for a five-page portrait spread in the magazine about the country's currently best-known and most unusual diplomat.

Melnyk has the task of representing his country in Germany, which has been overrun by the Russian war of aggression.

He doesn't do it with empty phrases and the submissive acceptance of telegrams of condolence - but with all the power of words, with courage and anger.

The diplomat, born in Lviv in western Ukraine in 1975, is demanding weapons and aid for his country.

Loudly and repeatedly, on television, in newspaper interviews, in talks with politicians and in appearances in front of parliaments.

Ukraine war: Ambassador in Germany vehemently demands arms deliveries - "don't let them down"

Also on Thursday (March 10th) again.

"You can't let us down.

We are there.

We fight.

For us, for our lives, for our children.

But we fight for you too.

We are also fighting for your freedom,” Melnyk calls out during an appearance in the Berlin House of Representatives.

He demands weapons for his country, he demands an airlift for Kyiv based on the Berlin model.

"There is a list of weapon systems that we expect," he said on ZDF in the morning.

And he has always experienced the same thing since the beginning of the war: the German politicians stand up and clap.

But they do not follow his demands.

Deliberately not.

Delivering war weapons to Ukraine could draw the Germans, all of NATO, into the war.

That's why only the 5000 helmets, that's why the howitzers from GDR stocks so late, that's why the most smug talk about "defensive weapons".

And so Melnyk makes it clear at every opportunity: That's not enough for him.

Russia's war reveals exotic Ukrainian diplomacy - but he's well connected

In diplomacy, where people like to smile, whisper and admonish, a roaring ambassador is exotic.

What speaks for Melnyk is that he is well connected, both here and there.

He writes cellphone messages directly to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy.

He has known the Germans, their politics, language and customs very well since he went to Hamburg as Consul General in 2007 – a time, by the way, when hardly anyone was interested in him and his country.

In 2010 he returned to Kyiv, continued his career there, and returned to Berlin in January 2015 as ambassador.

Even then, nobody wanted to hear his warnings of Russian aggression, which were very polite at the time, or his requests for NATO membership for Ukraine.

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The lack of interest he experienced at the time has turned into undiplomatic determination since the beginning of the war.

He sees all the kind gestures, the waving Ukraine flags in front of German government headquarters, the buildings illuminated in yellow and blue, and the pennants at the train stations.

Melnyk told Der

Spiegel

: “The Germans do it so that they can feel better.

(

CD

)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-03-12

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