Four Eastern European experts appealed to the German government to: “Clarify Germany’s goals for supporting Ukraine in its defense against a war of destruction against Russia.” Read the call in full here:

On February 24, 2022, Russia continued the war against Ukraine, which had been going on for almost eight years, with a large-scale attack aimed at subduing the neighboring country. Three days later, Chancellor Olaf Scholz called this serious violation of international law before the German Bundestag a “turning point” in Europe and announced the creation of a special fund worth billions of euros for the urgent modernization of the Bundeswehr. [forțele armate ale Germaniei].

The German government’s decision to now support Ukraine in its defense struggle by supplying weapons is a reversal of the cross-party consensus on refusing to supply weapons that could be used in a war against Russia.

Since then, the Federal Republic of Germany has provided significant assistance to Ukraine: federal, state, and local authorities, as well as civil society, have made political, economic, financial, technical, and practical contributions to mitigating the devastating effects of the war, and not, finally, accepting and accepting in a non-bureaucratic way a huge number of war refugees from Ukraine, mostly women, children and elderly people, in a very short time. An example in this matter is Germany, Poland, the Republic of Moldova, Slovakia, Romania, the Baltic states and others. In addition, Berlin has made a significant commitment to help in a timely manner to restore vital Ukrainian infrastructure for energy, drinking water, district heating and railways destroyed by Russian missiles, drones, artillery and others.

Aid for the repair of civilian facilities destroyed by Russian forces, namely hospitals, schools, kindergartens and residential buildings, contrasts with Germany’s military support for Ukraine, which has been provided only in phases over months. Starting with the promise of an acceptable number of combat helmets, then hesitant deliveries of armored evacuation vehicles or bridge installations, then howitzers and anti-aircraft guns, and ending with the recent announcement of the supply of BMPs and battle tanks – still being prepared – almost a full year has passed, a year of intense fighting in the north, east and southern Ukraine, with a high death rate among soldiers on both sides. In addition, there were numerous victims among the civilian population of various ages in all regions of Ukraine, as well as devastating destruction of vital civilian objects.

No matter how appropriate the non-military and military support of Ukraine in its defensive struggle against the aggression of the Russian Federation, it is unclear what strategic goal the ruling coalition in Berlin ultimately pursues with this. In this sense, the communication of the German government causes irritation not only within Germany. Phrases like “Ukraine must not lose” or “the Russian Federation must not win” do not create clarity, but rather cause political uncertainty and harm our country.

This “blind spot” of German policy towards Ukraine must urgently give way to political clarity! This means that the German government should finally make a clear statement about the purpose it is ultimately pursuing in providing military equipment, humanitarian aid, and technical support, intelligence and anti-cyber data to Ukraine. Preservation of the sovereignty of the Ukrainian state, the integrity of its territory and the reconstruction of the country after the war should be the cornerstone. This includes the fact that the liberation of the territories of Ukraine, which were already occupied and annexed by Russia in 2014, as well as in 2022, in violation of international law, should play a central role. The formulation of such a strategic goal should be coordinated with NATO and EU partners.

In addition, it is necessary to demand the prosecution and conviction for the “crime of aggression” of the leaders of Russia, who are guilty of launching a war of aggression against Ukraine, within the meaning of Art. 8 bis of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It is not without irony that it was the Soviet specialist in international law Aron Naumovich Trainin, as a legal adviser to the Soviet prosecutor’s office at the Nuremberg trial against the elite of the “Third Reich” in 1945/46, who made a significant contribution to the world recognition of this crime as the most serious crime in international criminal law right today

Regardless of possible intermediate measures, such as a temporary cease-fire on certain sections of the current front line, a general cease-fire, and negotiations for a future peace agreement, the goal must be to restore Ukraine’s sovereignty over its entire national territory within the 1991 borders. Its territorial integrity must be protected by international guarantees backed by military sanctions – unlike the Budapest “memorandum” of 1994, which the Russian Federation violated.

The Federal Republic of Germany bears a special political and moral responsibility to Ukraine for several reasons: on the one hand, it is the successor of the German Reich, which occupied all of Ukraine during the First World War – not least in order to economically exploit the coal and iron ore region of the Eastern of Ukraine, Donbas, around the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, a region that was still important because of the war. This plan was then continued by National Socialist Germany in its war of aggression and extermination against the Soviet Union during World War II. The main theaters of German aggression, including the brutal occupation regime and the Holocaust, were the Soviet republics of Ukraine and Belarus, as well as the western part of the then Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). There is a huge gap in the view of the history of reunified Germany regarding Ukraine, which must be urgently filled.

From this it follows that: Germany has a historically determined debt to Ukraine, whose existence is under acute threat: the Wehrmacht, Einsatzgruppen and SS devastated Soviet Ukraine for years, starting from June 22, 1941, they killed almost all Jews and “Ukrainian” Gypsies. ” and shot thousands of resistance fighters, called “bandits”. There were more than six hundred so-called “fiery villages” in Ukraine, which were razed to the ground by the SS, the Wehrmacht and their auxiliary units after the complete destruction of the village population. At the same time, millions of Ukrainians were taken to hard labor “to the Reich”, as many prisoners of war of the Soviet Ukrainian Red Army were left to starve in prisoner of war camps – here, in our country, in Stukenbrock, Sachsenhausen and Bergen-Belsen, and not in the distant “Reich Commissariat Ukraine”. How many Ukrainians fought on the Soviet side in the battle for Berlin in the spring of 1945 and how many died on the heights of Seelov and in the forests of Brandenburg is unknown even today – in any case, it was tens of thousands. .

May 8 [1945] it was the day of liberation. It freed us all from the inhuman system of National Socialist tyranny,” said then-Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker in 1985. Today we are talking about freeing parts of Ukraine from brutal occupation by another system of tyranny, but just as inhumane.

There are many indications that Russian leaders are playing a time game in the hope that German support for Ukraine will soon wane. The German government is obliged to remind the public again and again about the importance of military support. Given the debate in Germany, which has been characterized from the beginning by calls for Russia-attacked Ukraine to “negotiate” rather than resist, the German government should make it clear that arms supplies and negotiations are by no means mutually exclusive. the entire article and commentary at contributors.ro