No plans to admit Ukraine to Western alliances like Nato, says Germany’s Olaf Scholz
- German Chancellor, in Kyiv with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, says currently no plans to admit Ukraine to the likes of Nato
- ‘That is why it is [peculiar] that the Russian government is making something that is practically not on the agenda the subject of major political problems’
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says there are currently no plans to admit Ukraine to Western alliances such as Nato, despite what Moscow might imply with its security demands in the Ukraine crisis.
“That is why it is somewhat peculiar to observe that the Russian government is making something that is practically not on the agenda the subject of major political problems,” Scholz said at a joint press conference following talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Monday.
“That is, after all, the challenge we are actually facing. That something that is not at all an issue now is being made an issue,” he said.
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At the same press conference Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia was wielding its Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline as a “geopolitical weapon”.
The controversial energy link bypassing Ukraine has been a growing irritant in Germany’s relations with the US and Ukraine.
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“We have certain disagreements in our assessments” of the Russia-Germany energy link, Zelensky said. “We clearly understand that it is a geopolitical weapon.”
Russia has completed the building of the pipeline, which runs under the Baltic Sea, but German regulators are yet to approve its use.
Without mentioning Nord Stream 2 by name, Scholz, who is due in Moscow on Tuesday, said “no one should doubt the determination and preparedness” of Berlin to punish Russia in case it attacks its neighbour.
“We will act then and they will be very far-reaching measures that will have a significant impact on Russia’s economic development opportunities,” he said.
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Scholz offered Ukraine another €150 million (US$170 million) in financial aid during his trip to Kyiv, on top of another €150-million loan that has not yet been paid out, he said. The two leaders talked for almost two hours, longer than planned.
“These are very serious times in which I am visiting Ukraine,” said Scholz, reiterating that Germany stood firmly by Kiev’s side amid fears of war with Russia.
No country in the world has given more financial aid to Ukraine in the past eight years than Germany, the chancellor added.
Meanwhile British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday called on Western allies to “stand together and show a united front” and on European leaders to learn the lessons from Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, and reduce their dependence on Russian gas.
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“All European countries need to get [gas pipeline] Nord Stream out of the bloodstream, yank out that hypodermic drip-feed of Russian hydrocarbons that is keeping so many European economies going,” he said.
On Monday an additional eight US F-15 fighter jets landed in Poland, the Polish Defence Minister said, amid the mounting tension in the region.
“More American F-15 fighters landed today at the base in Lask,” Mariusz Blaszczak wrote on Twitter. “Eight aircraft will join those that came to Poland last week.”
Reporting by Agence France-Presse, dpa, Reuters
