Special train to Kyiv: Olaf Scholz's most important journey

Created: 06/16/2022, 12:23 p.m

Olaf Scholz after his arrival at the Kyiv train station.

Germany's ambassador in Kyiv, Anka Feldhusen, welcomes him on the platform.

© Kay Nietfeld/dpa

And he does travel: a visit by the chancellor to Kyiv has been discussed for months.

Olaf Scholz is here now.

He raised his own expectations.

Can he fulfill them?

Kyiv – What does Chancellor Olaf Scholz have in his luggage when he travels to Kyiv?

The answer is quite banal: Chocolate bars, gummy bears and Pinot Noir from Baden - just what you need to survive a ten-hour train journey.

Jörg Kukies and Jens Plötner, the Chancellor's advisors on economics and foreign policy, lugged the crates of food across the gloomy platform in Przemysl, the southern Polish border town to the Ukraine, late on Wednesday evening, where the Chancellor's probably most spectacular and perhaps also most important journey in his political career takes its course.

Scholz has to change from his government plane to the train in Poland because the airspace over Ukraine has been closed for almost four months due to the war.

In the first months of the war, a number of top politicians made the arduous overland journey to Kyiv to express their solidarity with the country attacked by Russia - from Polish President Andrzej Duda to the Chair of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who been there twice.

Draghi at the front of the train - Scholz at the back

However, this trip overshadows all previous ones: the heads of the three most populous and economically strongest countries in the European Union make their way through the war zone together: In addition to Scholz, Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi and France's President Emmanuel Macron are there.

All three countries are members of the G7 of democratic economic powers, which Scholz currently chairs.

France holds the EU Council Presidency.

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis is also to join in Kiev - as a representative of the Eastern European countries that feel particularly threatened by Russia.

A blue special train is waiting on the tracks.

Nine wagons, three for each country.

Draghi is allowed to sit at the front of the train, Scholz has his compartment quite far back.

In the middle, Macron invites you to a one-to-one talk in his saloon car just across the Ukrainian border.

The atmosphere is good, people even laugh.

No "short in and out with a photo op"

The question now is: What does Europe have in store for Ukraine, which has been bravely defending itself against the Russian war of aggression for four months.

Scholz himself has set the bar quite high for this.

"I'm not going to join a group of people who do a quick in and out with a photo op.

But when it does, then it's always about very specific things," he once explained his reluctance to travel to Kyiv.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recorded the Chancellor's presentation shortly before the trip.

"We also don't want him to just come to a photo appointment," he said in a ZDF interview.

"We need Chancellor Scholz's assurance that Germany will support Ukraine."

Ukrainians want guns and EU prospects

This trip is about two “very concrete things”:

Weapons: Ukraine requires them for their defensive struggle against Russian forces.

An adviser to Zelenskyy recently stated that Ukraine needs 1,000 heavy artillery pieces (howitzers), 300 multiple rocket launchers, 500 tanks, 2,000 armored vehicles and 1,000 drones to win the war against the Russian invaders.

Selenskyj himself has repeatedly demanded the delivery of modern air defense systems.

The Ukrainian ambassador in Berlin, Andriy Melnyk, is demanding main battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles from the federal government.

In his speech in the general debate in the Bundestag at the beginning of June, Scholz already went to his pain limit when it came to arms deliveries.

He promised multiple rocket launchers, a modern Iris-T air defense system and the Cobra tracking radar.

Any more major announcements would be a surprise.

EU accession: On this subject, something is more likely.

Ukraine is pushing for the EU to make it a candidate for membership at next week's summit in Brussels.

The commission will make its recommendation on Friday.

However, after her visit to Kyiv last Friday, von der Leyen made it very clear that it should be a yes.

"I hope that in 20 years, when we look back, we can say that we did the right thing." The challenge will be to emerge from the EU summit with a unified position "that reflects the scope of these historic decisions". .

The three heads of state Draghi, Macron and Scholz happily on the train on the way to Kyiv.

© Ludovic Marin/AFP POOL/AP/dpa

Draghi is among the advocates of candidate status, while Scholz and Macron are still among the skeptics.

You could now set an example in Kyiv with a view of the summit.

The decision must then be made unanimously.

Discussion about Kyiv travel is over

The Chancellor will definitely achieve one thing with his trip: the discussion about a Scholz trip to Kyiv will come to an end.

The Ukrainian railway company has put up advertising posters in the aisles of the train, showing a selection of those traveling to Kyiv.

Headline: "Railway Diplomacy".

Two top German politicians from Berlin can be seen on it: CDU leader Friedrich Merz, bottom right, and a little further up Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (SPD).

The poster will likely be replaced soon.

dpa