Contradictory statements on war with Russia are coming. U.S. and EU officials have previously gone out of their way to claim they were not a party to the conflict in Ukraine.
Arguing in favor of sending tanks to Kiev, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said EU countries were fighting a war against Russia.
“Arguing therefore I have said already in the last days — yes, we have to do more to defend Ukraine. Yes, we have to do more also on tanks,” Baerbock said during a debate at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Tuesday. “But the most important and crucial part is that we do it together and that we do not do the blame game in Europe, because we are fighting a war against Russia and not against each other.”
While German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has insisted that Germany ought to support Ukraine but avoid direct confrontation with Russia, his coalition partner Baerbock has taken a more hawkish position. According to German media, her party – the Greens – has been in favor of sending Leopard 2 tanks to Kiev, and eventually managed to pressure Scholz into agreeing. Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht, who was reluctant to send tanks to Ukraine, was pushed to resign.
This is not the first time Baerbock has made waves with her position on the conflict. She told an EU gathering in Prague last August that she intends to deliver on her promises to Ukraine “no matter what my German voters think.”
Russia’s Comment
Quoting Baerbock’s words on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the West just keeps admitting that they had been planning the current conflict for years.
“If we add this to Merkel’s revelations that they were strengthening Ukraine and did not count on the Minsk agreements, then we are talking about a war against Russia that was planned in advance. Do not say later that we did not warn you,” Zakharova insisted.
Merkel’s Statement: A Ploy
Former German chancellor Angela Merkel told German media in early December that the 2014 ceasefire brokered by Berlin and Paris was actually a ploy to “give Ukraine valuable time” for a military build-up. Former French president Francois Hollande has confirmed this, while Ukraine’s leader at that time, Pyotr Poroshenko, openly admitted it as well.
Medvedev’s Claim
Russia’s operation in Ukraine was a “forced and last-resort response to preparations for aggression by the U.S. and its satellites,” former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev claimed on Monday.
Nobody Told Me We Are At War
Commenting on the German foreign minister’s declaration that Europe is “fighting a war against Russia,” Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said on Thursday that this was news to him, and wished Berlin better luck than in WWII.
Croatia “should in no way help” Ukraine militarily, Milanovic said while visiting the port city of Split. “Do you want us to enter the war?”
Framing the Ukraine conflict as one between Washington and Moscow, he reminded reporters that he was criticized for merely echoing the words of Kiev’s defense minister, about the current conflict being a “proxy war” between NATO and Russia.
“Now the German foreign minister says we must be united, because I quote, we are at war with Russia. I did not know that,” Milanovic said. “May be Germany is at war with Russia, but then, good luck, may be this time it turns out better than 70-odd years ago.”
The Croatian president was baffled to hear such a claim from the leader of the German Greens, which he said used to be a pacifist party equally against the US and the USSR, and not from Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
“If we are at war with Russia, then, let’s see what we need to do. But we would not ask Germany for its opinion,” Milanovic added. “Let them figure out who is the actual chancellor over there. I have been in politics for a long time, and our country has been through a lot, but I have never seen this kind of madness before.”
When it comes to tanks, “Russian or American, they burn just the same,” Milanovic said, noting that deliveries of armor to Ukraine — announced by the U.S. and Germany this week — will only prolong the fighting.
“Those tanks may burn, or they may reach Crimea, but Croatia will have nothing to do with it,” he insisted.
The social-democrat president has frequently clashed with the nationalist parliamentary majority over Croatia’s Ukraine policy. Just last month, Milanovic opposed Zagreb’s participation in the EU program to train Ukrainian troops, saying it clashed with Croatia’s constitution.
Unless the U.S. and Russia are holding some kind of talks, the world is “slowly sliding into World War Three,” Milanovic added. “Some people think it has already begun, but I have my reservations.”
France Denies The West Is At War Against Russia
Decisions by the U.S., Germany and several other countries to supply main battle tanks to Ukraine do not mean NATO is at war with Moscow, the French Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. The comments from Quai d’Orsay come after a controversial speech by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in the European Parliament earlier this week.
“We are not at war with Russia and none of our partners are,” ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre said on Thursday, according to AFP. “The delivery of military equipment does not constitute co-belligerence.”
The day before, Washington announced it would send more than 30 of its M1 Abrams tanks to Kiev, while Berlin said it would contribute over a dozen Leopard 2 panzers and not stand in the way of Poland and other EU and NATO members who wish to hand theirs over to Ukraine as well.
Seeking to drum up support for tank deliveries on Tuesday, Baerbock told the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) that the EU must move in lockstep “because we are fighting a war against Russia and not against each other.”
On Wednesday, French PM Elisabeth Borne told the parliament in Paris that her government was “continuing our analysis” of the proposal to send Leclerc tanks to Ukraine.
France has already promised Kiev a number of AMX-10 “light tanks,” earlier this month.
Meanwhile, French FM Catherine Colonna visited Ukraine on Thursday, meeting with her counterpart Dmitry Kuleba in Odessa to “show France’s long-term support” and “assess Ukraine’s urgent needs in the humanitarian and military sectors in order to provide concrete responses,” according to a press release from Quai d’Orsay.