Faeser on champagne glass pictures from Kyiv: »I regret the photo«

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Drinking champagne in Kyiv (from left): Nancy Faeser, Anka Feldhusen, Vitali Klitschko and Hubertus Heil

Photo: Christophe Gateau / dpa

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser says she regrets a scene from her trip to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv at the end of July.

Photos and videos showed the SPD politician with her party colleague and Labor Minister Hubertus Heil, Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko and the German Ambassador Anka Feldhusen on the balcony of the ambassador's residence.

The four hold champagne glasses in their hands, sometimes they laugh at the cameras of journalists.

Now Faeser was confronted with one of these pictures at an event of the editorial network Germany.

"I regret the photo," she said.

It was "certainly not appropriate".

At the same time, the picture is easy to explain because normal everyday life has returned to Kyiv at the moment - although this is difficult to understand given the war crimes and ongoing fighting in the east of the country.

'People go shopping.

There are flowers planted in public space again.

People go to bars, they sit in cafés, they go about their work.«

It's difficult to understand, but you can see that in the picture, said Faeser.

"We were invited to the ambassador's place in the evening and with the mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, and in the end we chose the same drink as him."

Because that expresses something that is inappropriate when you come from another country.«

The pictures from the ambassador's balcony had caused criticism.

The Secretary General of the CDU, Mario Czaja, was one of the prominent voices who were critical of it.

Among other things, he tweeted: "Pictures have an effect - and the effect of this picture speaks volumes."

Faeser and Heil did not only visit Kyiv at the end of July.

They had also traveled to the war-ravaged town of Irpin.

Faeser calls Putin a war criminal

At the event on Tuesday evening in Potsdam, the interior minister was also asked whether she considered Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal.

Faeser answered with a resounding yes.

"Of course, that's subject to the preservation of evidence and the rule of law," she explained.

But in view of the suffering that Putin has caused in Ukraine, one can probably call him a war criminal.

US President Joe Biden has repeatedly called Putin a "war criminal," triggering a sharp backlash in the Kremlin.

aar/dpa