Melnyk gives an insight into "Walking on thin ice" at Selenskyj - and continues to taunt at "Hard but fair".

Created: 06/09/2022, 11:38 am

The round of "hard but fair" on September 5th, 2022 © Berlin Adlershof

Does Germany have to sacrifice itself for Ukraine?

The group at Plasberg agrees: the sanctions should hit Russia.

Andriy Melnyk enrages the SPD guest.

Berlin – "As a citizen in Germany, you feel a bit like you're on a roller coaster at the moment," says Frank Plasberg at the opening of his show.

"Billion-dollar relief packages are being put together and if you're still trying to figure out what that means for your own household, the gas price shoots through the roof like it does today.

30 percent up!”

Plasberg on the shutdown of Nord Stream 1: "They could have said the dog ate the operating instructions"

The invited round in Plasberg's ARD talk "Hard but fair" can only illuminate this problem from a distance, because it consists of better and much better earners across the board.

The fact that an average family will have to pay 3,900 euros more per year for energy in the future than in 2021 probably doesn't shock anyone here, as the viewer suspects right away.

But there is also another issue: the question of how Germany can supply Ukraine with even more weapons.

FDP man Alexander Graf Lambsdorff is not surprised that Putin is now turning off the gas supply to the Germans because of the crazy sanctions.

The alleged oil leak at the compressor station is just "an excuse, everyone knows it," he says, and Plasberg agrees: "They could have said the dog ate the operating instructions."

While Germany prepares for a harsh winter, the Russian company Gazprom is paying out its huge profits as a special dividend.

“Is Russia about to win this economic war?” Plasberg wants to know.

East expert Sabine Fischer dismisses: “The sanctions are working.

But over time.

We don't see the effect very clearly yet.” Plasberg does not give up: Russia publicly claims that they have time and that the Germans would suffer a stroke at the sight of the next bills.

A misinterpretation for Fischer.

She's already thinking about spring: "Russia still has this winter.

After that, the gas gun will become progressively blunter.”

Social Democrat Ralf Stegner is also certain: "If a country like Germany can't do it, who is going to do it?" Journalist Anna Lehmann counters.

Solidarity with Ukraine will melt, depending on "how high the price is that we have to pay for it".

The traffic light coalition should hold society together.

However, the relief package does not have exactly this effect.

"70 percent end up with the 30 percent well-earned."

"Hard but fair": These guests discussed with Frank Plasberg

• Andriy Melnyk

  – (Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany)

• Alexander Graf Lambsdorff

  – (FDP faction vice)

• Ralf Stegner

  – (SPD MP)

• Anna Lehmann

  – (

  taz

  journalist)

• Sabine Fischer

  – (Expert on Russian Foreign and Security Policy)

Stegner has a suspicion: "The Germans don't want us to impose sanctions that harm us more than Russia." And he also has a solution: "The motto must be that the sanctions harm as much as possible the person against whom they are imposed. The Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, who has been unusually mute up to now, dares to come out from under cover.

He demands more support, more weapons for his country.

The relief package is worth more than 60 billion euros, but only around 600 million went to Ukraine in military aid, the diplomat is outraged.

The Germans should "think about where their country is in the history books".

Lambsdorff gives him support.

He has developed a strategy: Germany can only end the war in Ukraine with more weapons.

But Lambsdorff also corrects Melnyk.

There will soon be more than one billion euros in military aid and eight billion euros in financial aid that Melnyk must not embezzle.

"Hard but fair" - Lambsdorff: "Right now is the hour of the military"

Stegner, of all people, who is nicknamed “Pöbel-Ralle” on Twitter, is practicing as a level-headed thinker.

“The war can last for years.

Western democracies can't easily stand it." That's why "ultimately there must be diplomatic solutions".

Lambsdorff lists the horror scenarios that are circulating, such as a Russian march through to Berlin.

Stegner always calmly intervenes: "That's propaganda," he says.

"Propaganda, propaganda." Lambsdorff relents: "I realize that, but now is the military's hour."

Plasberg plays a quote from Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who said in the "Daily Issues": "What is at stake here in Ukraine is people's lives.

What is at stake in your country is the comfort of the people.” Melnyk picks up the thread: he wants 500 tanks from Germany.

"Not to prolong the war, but to shorten it." He does not reveal exactly how this works.

He wanted to "end the suffering of the people" with tanks.

"War means death, destruction, rape, traumatization," philosophizes Stegner.

But it is also about the fact that “people can no longer pay their bills and lose their homes.

That we produce poverty”.

Lehmann also appealed to Melnyk: "This war will not only be won in the military field." Melnyk remains stubborn: "Yes!

Yes!" Lambsdorff gives him protection from fire: "I think we can do more as Germany."

Ambassador Melnyk: "Sometimes you have to raise your voice to be heard"

But Melnyk shows self-criticism.

His president was also dissatisfied with him as ambassador to Germany.

He had to explain to Volodymyr Zelenskyj again and again "why I did one or the other thing or didn't do it.

It was a walk on thin ice."

He justifies his gaffes to German politicians: "Sometimes you have to raise your voice to be heard."

Plasberg plays a statement from the Halle-Saalekreis trade association, which criticizes Chancellor Olaf Scholz: “Do you really want to sacrifice your country for Ukraine?

It's not our war!" Melnyk, on the other hand, accuses Germany of neglect: "The gross domestic product is 3,600 billion euros.

Only 0.02 percent of this went to Ukraine as aid!” When he dismissed Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer as a “hobby foreign politician”, Stegner burst out: “I find the situation too difficult to caricature.” Lehmann also criticizes Melnyk.

He should stop "teaching people from above".

But Melnyk remains firm: "You shouldn't underestimate the military in Germany either," he says.

Plasberg whistles him back: "You shouldn't underestimate what's social in Germany.

The approval of what we do.”

Conclusion of the "hard but fair" talk

Surprisingly, ex-ambassador Melnyk is tough as ever in his theses, but rhetorically almost tame.

And of all things Ralf Stegner in a tight diplomatic dress.

Unfortunately, that wasn't enough for real excitement.