Today is about the Turkish President, who wants to refuse Finland and Sweden admission to NATO.
It is also about the soldiers in the Mariupol steelworks - and about the new French prime minister, only the second in the history of the republic.
Turkey blocks NATO expansion
Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan
wants to disrupt the big accession party: On Monday he renewed his
rejection of Finland and Sweden joining NATO
– which must be decided unanimously, giving Erdoğan a veto right.
The alleged reason: the two Scandinavian countries would harbor "terrorists" and refuse to extradite them - meaning members of the Kurdish terrorist organization PKK and the Gülen movement.
The Finns and Swedes don't even have to bother, Erdoğan told them.
This begs the question: does he mean it seriously – and what is the real reason?
Does Erdoğan even want to do Russian President
Vladimir Putin a favor
, with whom he has a complicated relationship?
Is it really about Kurds and Gülenists?
Or does Erdoğan only want to pay dearly for his approval
, for example with American weapon systems and F-35 aircraft?
In any case, the latter does not seem unlikely, and Erdoğan's "no" will hardly have been his last word.
If he really sticks to it and thus provokes an international crisis, the pressure on Turkey will increase enormously.
A
partner
who repeatedly
blackmails his allies
does not become more attractive as a result.
But the USA has not yet reacted to the threatening gestures from Ankara.
In Scandinavia, this hasn't bothered them:
Finnish President Sauli Niinistö is on a state visit to Sweden today
at the invitation of King Carl XVI.
Gustaf to talk to the government and the royal family about joining NATO.
And in Moscow?
From there, threatening sentences according to the motto that the two countries would not increase their security.
But when one considers that their accession would increase the common border between Russia and NATO states from 800 kilometers to 2,100 kilometers,
the Russian reaction is strikingly cautious
.
Another sign that the real reason for the attack on Ukraine was not its possible NATO membership, which was already a long way off.
It was Putin's imperialist will to subdue a country and a people that were culturally and politically closer to the West - and that he regarded as his property.
NATO accession: Sweden chooses the historic about-face - with stomach ache
Olaf Scholz and his non-visit to Kyiv
Chancellor Olaf Scholz's refusal
to
go to Kiev becomes a never-ending story: first, members of the Bundestag, who wanted to go to the then still embattled Ukrainian capital out of solidarity, reported that they had been put under pressure from the Federal Chancellery please don't do that.
The FDP MP Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann said that a person close to the chancellor had described her planned trip as
"war tourism"
.
For a long time, Scholz's reluctance to go to Kyiv to support Ukraine was only expressed in demonstrative silence on the question.
He later claimed that
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier's
disinvitation was standing in the way of the visit.
Shortly thereafter, the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj phoned Steinmeier, the matter was settled, so Scholz could now have driven.
But now there is a new reason.
In an interview with RTL last night, he said: “I will not join a group of people who do something for a short in and out with a photo shoot.
But if, then it's always about very concrete things
.«
Clearly, whenever the Federal Chancellor undertakes a trip or a state visit, it is about “very concrete things”.
It's never about symbolism, the visit itself is never the message.
Does my sarcasm get through to you?
Of course, a visit to Kiev would be about exactly that: a demonstration of solidarity
, as many international politicians have done in the meantime (and which Scholz also indirectly criticizes).
Why is the chancellor so reluctant to do so?
What is also strange about the story: why does Olaf Scholz have to keep coming up with new reasons not to go to Kyiv?
One can state: Scholz's continued refusal to visit Kyiv is now symbolically just as important as a visit would have been - only with the opposite message.
The federal government's Ukraine course: The Scholz problem
The end of the defense of Mariupol?
On the 82nd day of Russia's war against Ukraine, after months of siege,
many of the Ukrainian defenders of the Azovstal industrial complex in the Black Sea city of Mariupol laid down their arms
- by order of President Zelenskyy, the latter announced.
The Azov regiment, which recently mainly defended the complex (before that, the Ukrainian Navy fought primarily for the city), announced: In order to save lives, they are carrying out the decision of the supreme military command and hope for the support of the Ukrainian one people.
Videos were later shown of buses in which hundreds of Ukrainian fighters were being taken out of the city – according to initial reports, apparently to Russian-occupied territory.
The defenders of the completely destroyed Azovstal Works
had last vegetated in the labyrinthine corridors in horrific conditions
.
Medical supplies ran out and reports of large-scale amputations.
(Here is a graphic overview of the situation.) Wives of fighters had recently toured western capitals on a support tour.
Two weeks ago, SPIEGEL reported extensively with testimonies about life inside the complex.
In the West and in Russian propaganda, the fact that many Ukrainian defenders belong to the controversial »Azov« regiment
, which has far-right roots,
played a major role in the discussion .
Here you can read our differentiated analysis on the question of whether »Azow« has renounced this body of thought as claimed - the short version: It is complicated.
For the Ukrainians, however, this discussion was never in the foreground - for them the most important thing was that the fighters were
defending
Mariupol .
A city in which Russia has probably committed more cruel war crimes than in any other city
, and in which, according to the mayor, more than 20,000 civilians were killed.
With the abandonment of the steelworks, the last resistance in Mariupol ends – but not the spirit of resistance of the Ukrainians, who have partially already recaptured their territory in the north-east near the city of Kharkiv, right up to the Russian border.
You can find more news and background information on the war in Ukraine here:
That happened at night:
numerous victims are reported from the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
The evacuations in Mariupol continue.
And: sharp criticism of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The overview
Why Putin probably lost 485 soldiers on a Ukrainian river:
Because the Ukrainians are cutting off the Russians' paths, the offensive in eastern Ukraine is making little progress.
Many soldiers are said to have fallen in an attack.
The Kremlin will probably have to scale back its war aims.
Did Russia really use phosphorus bombs?
Videos on social networks are said to show the Azov steelworks in Mariupol being shelled with phosphorus bombs.
But experts have doubts.
The Russian-loyal billionaire from the Saarland:
He doesn't think much of US capitalism, instead he raves about the "Russian soul": Thomas Bruch is senior boss of the German trading giant Globus - and remains active in Putin's empire despite the war.
How does he justify that?
The career of a right-wing conspiracy narrative
Another shooter motivated by racist ideas has killed people in the United States.
Following the example of other right-wing terrorists, he again streamed his act live and left a 180-page manifesto in which he described himself as a "white supremacist" who wanted to kill as many black people as possible.
A horrible act.
The best way to react to this type of assassin, which is no longer entirely new, is to withdraw attention and consistently monitor right-wing extremists.
More worrying is how a conspiracy narrative from this radical milieu is increasingly making its way into the right-wing mainstream, not only in the USA: the so-called »great replacement theory« or »repopulation theory«, which claims a population exchange supposedly planned by the elites, in the white to be replaced by non-whites – a fairy tale invented by French far-right Renaud Camus that portrays migratory movements as part of a grand conspiracy.
This crazy idea is being spread in the USA by the most successful Fox News star, Tucker Carlson, but is also becoming increasingly popular among Republican politicians.
In France, presidential candidate Éric Zemmour spread them.
And in Germany the writer Uwe Tellkamp, who approaches right-wing extremist ideas, recently answered in an interview with the »SZ« when asked about his connection to the term »Umvolkung« that one could also say »personnel change«.
These right-wing extremist delusions are not only in the minds of 18-year-olds running amok, they seep into society and poison the thoughts in the right-wing national milieu.
Uwe Tellkamp capitulates to himself: so much hate, disgust, reckoning, morality
Winner of the day...
…is
Élisabeth Borne, the new Prime Minister of France
.
She is only the second woman to head the republic - 30 years after the hapless Edith Cresson, who was only around 10 months in office under President François Mitterrand.
The role of prime ministers in France is not quite as insignificant as it often appears from the outside, especially in domestic politics.
But presidents are happy to exchange them in order to set political signals and herald a new phase.
President Emmanuel Macron appointed Borne on Monday after the expected resignation of her predecessor Jean Castex - at the ideal time: after the presidential elections, before the general elections in June.
The new prime minister is expected to help the president secure his majority during the election campaign, which has so far been widely expected - even after that she would probably stay in office.
Borne is considered extremely loyal, her task would then be
The latest news from the night
War in Ukraine exacerbates child malnutrition worldwide:
around 600,000 malnourished children around the world could be affected in the short term.
According to the UN, the conflict in Eastern Europe has massive consequences for aid programs.
In focus: more expensive peanut paste.
Attacker in US church was "upset about political tensions between China and Taiwan":
One dead and five injured in an attack on a place of worship in the United States.
According to the police, there was a political motive behind the crime.
Elon Musk brings discount for Twitter into play:
Elon Musk wants to pay 44 billion US dollars for Twitter – so far.
Most recently, the Tesla boss raised concerns about bots and fake accounts.
Publicly, he now pondered a possible price reduction.
The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today
»He who helps others is happier«:
You helped with the reconstruction in the Ahr Valley, now you are bringing food and blankets to Poland for the Ukraine.
Help has become a way of life for Faris Allahham and Anas Alakkad.
How long can they keep it up?
What we can give our children so that they get through life well:
Of course we want to protect our children.
But we should learn to trust them.
Because only those who have the experience of having achieved something can look to the future with self-confidence.
Why so many emigrants came back to Germany:
Thousands of Germans made their fortune in the Wild West, but one in five went back to Europe - like Emilie Peters from the North Sea island of Foehr.
The returnees were not considered to have failed, on the contrary.
"Maybe that's the price I had to pay for my dream":
Bruno Rodriguez has played for Paris Saint-Germain and Monaco.
Many of his injuries were treated with cortisone.
But the pain increased until he saw only one radical way out.
Why do you need a beer giraffe?
The first preparations for the traditional men's excursions are underway.
Heiko Höhn, 47, operator of the vatertagstour.de website, knows how to make the day a success – with or without a drinking helmet.
I wish you a good start into the day.
Yours, Mathieu von Rohr
