Ukraine’s Ambassador in Germany: How many Ukrainians have to be murdered and raped before Germany strengthens its sanctions?

Evropeyska Pravda – Sunday, 3 April 2022, 16:44

Andriy Melnyk, Ukraine’s Ambassador to Germany, strongly reacted to the German governing coalition’s discussions of the possible strengthening of sanctions against the Russian Federation.

Source: Andriy Melnyk on Twitter, in response to  a post by Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, about the possibility of strengthening sanctions against the Russian Federation in response to the atrocities Russian troops committed in the Kyiv region

According to Melnyk: "Now let’s put it directly: for the ‘traffic light’ government [the German governing coalition] to finally find enough courage to put at least a little more pressure on Russia and strengthen its sanctions (including a gas and oil embargo?), hundreds more peaceful Ukrainian citizens have to to be killed, hundreds more women raped. Understood."

Details: The Ukrainian Ambassador was responding to Annalena Baerbock’s tweet in which she promised to respond to the crimes committed by the Russian army. She wrote that "Those guilty in these war crimes have to be held responsible. We will strengthen the sanctions against Russia and will offer Ukraine even more support in its defence efforts."

Melnyk’s outrage was a reaction to the announcement by Christian Lindner, the German Minister of Finance, in which he expressed opposition to introducing an embargo on Russian energy sources.

Lindner said that "The sanctions are already unprecedented. But they must target the Putin regime rather than jeopardise Germany’s stability."

Earlier: The Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany said that after Russia began its attack on Ukraine, Lindner told him in Berlin that Ukraine had "only a few hours" left, and that was why he opposed supplying arms to Kyiv and disconnecting Russia from SWIFT.

According to the available information, before Russia’s full-scale invasion, Germany was strongly opposed to supplying arms to Ukraine due to the belief that this would lead to escalation in Donbas.