Chancellor Olaf Scholz has reassured German citizens that Germany would not become a party to the war in Ukraine by continuing to support Kyiv in the fight against invading Russian forces.
“Yes, I give this guarantee’’, he said in response to a question in the Bundestag parliament on Wednesday, echoing comments he had made before, adding “That’s what I stand for as chancellor.”
However, Russian President Vladimir Putin has long regarded Germany and the Western military alliance NATO as a party to the war.
Scholz, however, rejected Putin’s idea there should be a ceasefire in Ukraine on Russian terms.
“In my view, a ceasefire that involves Ukraine surrendering is something that we as Germany should never support,” the German chancellor said.
He said this was not an abstract question, “as you can see from this strange peace offer from Putin. He said that he was prepared to agree to a ceasefire if Ukraine also gave him more annexations for free, so to speak.”
For that, Scholz said that, “This shows that Putin has no intention of ending the war.”
(dpa/NAN)
