The Ukrainian ambassador Melnyk was the most undiplomatic diplomat in Berlin at least since the start of the Ukraine war. Shortly before his farewell, he offends someone again – it hits the Prime Minister of Saxony.
The outgoing Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, has withdrawn an invitation from the CDU politician to his homeland because of statements made by Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer about the Ukraine war. “With your absurd rhetoric about freezing the war, you are playing into Putin’s hands and fueling Russia’s aggression,” Melnyk wrote on Twitter. Therefore, his invitation to Kretschmer to visit Ukraine was “cancelled”.
“They are undesirable. Period,” added the ambassador. Melnyk was reacting to statements by the Saxon head of government in the ZDF program “Markus Lanz” on Wednesday. In it, Kretschmer said it was important “to stand up for the fact that this war has to be frozen, that we need a ceasefire, that we need negotiations to end this war”. However, he experiences “very little” in the public debate.
In the program, Kretschmer condemned “this terrible crime” in view of the invasion of Ukraine ordered by Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin. “Russia must not win the war, that’s absolutely right,” emphasized the CDU politician. However, in this war “no attempts should be made to be decided on the battlefield, because that could have such dire consequences for all of us”. Kretschmer emphasized that diplomacy offers the opportunity to talk to each other, even “if you have completely different opinions, if you are enemies”.
Melnyk has been ambassador to Germany since the end of 2014 and has repeatedly caused a stir with sharp criticism of German politicians. He described Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) as “offended liverwurst” when the German head of government initially refused his own trip to Kyiv after President Frank-Walter Steinmeier had been invited from Ukraine.
In early July, the Ukrainian head of state, Volodymyr Zelensky, signed a decree recalling Melnyk from Berlin. He is scheduled to hand over the business to his successor in October.