Ukraine war: Eastern Europe expert talks about Putin's "war of annihilation" - and a divided Germany

Created: 03/27/2022, 06:07

By: Anna-Katharina Ahnefeld

In the Ippen interview, the Eastern Europe correspondent looks from Poland at the Ukraine war and the reaction to a possible attack on NATO territory.

looks at the Ukraine war* and the role of NATO

with Eastern Europe correspondent Aleksandra Fedorska from Poland .

How does Vladimir Putin* want to rule a destroyed country?

What happens when a missile crosses the NATO border?

And what does a world before 1989 actually mean for the Federal Republic?

Ippen interview with Eastern Europe correspondent Aleksandra Fedorska on the Ukraine war.

© Photomontage: Michael Kappeler/Maximilian Litzka/dpa

What demands and expectations does Poland have of NATO in view of the Ukraine war?

Poland is a member of NATO and a not exactly unimportant one.

Here on NATO's eastern flank, Poland is the largest country and the center of an entire region.

The expectations are the expectations of each member: that if you are attacked, the whole alliance will defend you.

Now the US President is traveling to Poland and thus to the eastern flank of NATO.

US Presidents' visitors are eagerly awaited in Poland, they are important.

Every US President has visited Poland, of course also because of its importance for the entire region.

This is a communication hub for all matters that are important in the Eastern Europe region.

Of course, he also comes here to visit Poland in this special situation.

There are over two million people from Ukraine here.

What is happening at the moment borders on a state of emergency.

With his visit, Biden supports the war refugees.

I think what he particularly wants in Poland is to talk a lot, to discuss a lot with representatives of Poland, but also with representatives of an entire region.

Putin is destroying cities, infrastructure, industry in Ukraine and in areas that he wants to have as an area of ​​influence: How does he want to govern a destroyed country?

I ask myself the same thing.

How do you govern a country that has been bled dry?

From which people have fled, in which one stands in front of ruins?

If you've starved cities before?

Putin shoots at hospitals, he shoots at schools on purpose.

What we hear from women and children who have fled here in Poland is simply terrible.

But we have seen in the past what the regime under Putin is capable of.

We experienced the second Chechen war.

Grozny was a completely destroyed city.

That means there are decisions in the Kremlin that are incomprehensible, that seem impossible.

I don't know how he imagines it.

What if a missile crossed the NATO border with Poland?

Oh, a very drastic scenario of course.

Since Poland is part of NATO, this is an attack on the alliance pact.

Article 5 will then apply: the alliance will defend anyone who is attacked.

And then, I think, there will be a military confrontation.

I can't imagine it any other way.

For us, for the civilian population, I assume that, like Ukraine today, we will move westward.

The people who came from Ukraine, as well as Poles.

We would move towards Germany, just as the Ukrainians moved westwards, i.e. towards Poland.

Is the Polish population afraid of such a scenario?

Fear was greater in the first few days after the invasion.

At the moment you don't really have the space for your own fears because you absorb the grief and fears of the people from Ukraine.

Currently, a lot is about coping with the everyday lives of over two million people.

I might briefly describe a scene from this morning: I met a friend in front of my house and asked him why he was leaving so early and he told me that he was looking after people at the train station at night.

People go to the main train station to welcome people, to take care of them, to give them food, to send them the first information.

Information is very important at this time.

How do I get on?

Where's the nearest doctor?

Where will I be fed?

And that's what normal people do.

An entire city does that, or at the moment an entire country does it.

At the moment we don't have that much room to take care of ourselves and our fears, which are of course there.

How do you govern a country that has been bled dry?

From which people have fled, in which one stands in front of ruins?

If you've starved cities before? 

Aleksandra Fedorska, Eastern Europe correspondent in Poland

Regarding disinformation: How big do you currently estimate this problem in the Ukraine war?

The problem is definitely there.

It's likely to get even bigger as there's a whole wealth of information out there.

A whole sea of ​​quick information that cannot be checked at all.

About two weeks ago there were the first signs that there was increasing disinformation in order to deliberately create an atmosphere, an atmosphere of fear at collection points - there are certain cities where trains from Ukraine arrive, where buses arrive.

But the reaction was very good because it quickly became clear how to react.

We journalists here on site, my work colleagues from other editorial offices and also those who work freelance try to clarify things.

This is especially true for Facebook, of course, and also for Twitter.

Namely, if you get a message like this or read something like this, please check it at least twice.

And you shouldn't get too emotionally involved with it, because that's what this news wants.

Alexandra, to conclude: If Putin wants to bring about a world like before 1989, what does that mean for Germany?

A world before '89 is a Cold War world, a divided world.

Poland, but also East Germany, belonged to the Warsaw Pact at the time, so they were not part of the West, not part of the free world.

That would be tragic for Europe.

Everything that we have created, including the reunification of Germany, would be up for negotiation because they are events that took place after '89.

However, I might not want to get that far ahead.

Despite all its cruelty, Russia does not really achieve military success.

The front seems to be holding up at least so far.

That means Russia does not have the military strength it would need to defeat a NATO member.

At the moment, according to the experts, the Russian army could not compete with a NATO country.

She just doesn't have the potential for that.

But, and I would like to emphasize this, if you wait longer, a year, a year and a half, Russia will learn from these experiences.

Then we don't know what the future will bring, whether Putin will try to attack other countries to the west.

This war was not optimally prepared by Russia.

This applies to the structure, to the number of weapons, but above all, and this is what surprises the Eastern European experts in particular, that Russia did not draft enough soldiers into the army a year and a half ago.

The army is actually under-staffed to conquer and even more so to hold a country like Ukraine.

Why didn't Putin do that?

The reasons for this can probably be found in domestic Russian politics.

He risked a lot and from a purely military point of view it now seems weak.

He tries cruelty, starvation, a war of annihilation.

But that probably won't pave the way for his victory over Ukraine.

Therefore, if we as NATO feel threatened,

it is not a scenario for this year or for next year.

This is something that may threaten us in the future.

(aka) *Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.

Interview with Eastern Europe expert: Correspondent Aleksandra Fedorska talks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, the dramatic border situation and European unity.