Former Ukrainian ambassador to Berlin Andriy Melnyk requested a personal meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to personally apologize to him for calling him an “offended sausage” in May. The former head of the Ukrainian diplomatic mission stated this on Tuesday, August 2, in an interview with Bild TV.

“If the chancellor had received me before he left, I would have apologized to him,” Melnik said, explaining that he had sent a corresponding request to the department of the head of the German government. At the same time, he assessed the prospects of a face-to-face meeting as uncertain. “Let’s see, I hope so,” Melnik said, explaining that “it’s a good way to greet someone before you leave.”

What did Ukrainian ambassador Andriy Melnyk remember in Germany?

As Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to Germany, a position he has held for seven and a half years since the beginning of 2015, Andriy Melnik was remembered for a series of harsh statements regarding the leadership of the RFA. In particular, he repeatedly accused former Chancellor Angela Merkel (Angela Merkel) and former Foreign Minister, now President of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Frank-Walter Steinmeier) of the fact that, in his opinion, it was its appeasement policy towards Moscow made it possible for Russia to attack Ukraine.

In May 2022, Melnik, commenting on Olaf Scholz’s refusal to visit Kyiv, said that the head of the German government “is pretending to be offended”. At the same time, he used a vivid idiom, which, in literal translation into Russian, sounds like “throwing offended liver sausage” (“beleidigte Leberwurst spielen”).

After this statement caused a scandal, the Ukrainian ambassador refused to apologize to Scholz and just a month and a half later recognized the expression he used as “diplomatically inappropriate”, noting that he intended to apologize personally to the chancellor.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky fired Melnyk from his post in early July. After that, the media reported that in Kyiv the former ambassador could be appointed deputy foreign minister.