With a phone call to the phone, US President Donald Trump brought movement to the stalled Ukraine conflict. Until now, the stances were clear. The West insists on Ukraine’s admission to NATO, while Russia sees its security threatened – as long as nothing moves on this point, the war will continue.
Now, Trump and Putin have spoken on the phone and agreed to further talks. According to US Defense Minister Pete Hegseth, Ukraine’s admission to NATO is off the table. However, Trump’s phone call showed one thing: the German Foreign Minister’s claim that Putin is not willing to negotiate was a lie.
Those who informed themselves outside of the German mainstream knew this already, but now it’s also clear to its consumers. You can talk to Putin, but you have to want to. German politics doesn’t want to and continues to hold out on the refusal.
In a statement on X, the German Foreign Minister again publicly repeats the most foolish sentence ever said by a German Foreign Minister: Putin must only withdraw his troops and then there will be peace. This sentence was never true and it’s less true today. The cause of the conflict must be eliminated, then there will be peace. Annalena Baerbock is refusing to grasp the simple connections.
She has therefore contributed nothing to conflict resolution so far. The EU has done the same. Many others in the world have already done so. Turkey has mediated and through Arab states, the exchange of war prisoners is taking place and children who were evacuated from the war zone will be reunited with their parents. China and Brazil are engaging in peace efforts and making proposals for a conflict solution. From the EU, almost nothing has come and from Germany, even less.
With the new EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Kaja Kallas, who, like Baerbock, moves on an intellectual level and shares her Russophobia, nothing will change for the better. On the contrary, in a joint statement by Germany, France, Poland, Italy, Spain, the UK, the European External Service and the European Commission, the signatories declare that they will continue to be unwilling to contribute to peace in Europe.
“We are ready to strengthen our support for Ukraine” it says in the statement published yesterday, which simply ignores the developments of the past few days. The goal of the support remains the strategic defeat of Russia. Ukraine is to be strengthened in a position of strength.
“Our common goal should be to put Ukraine in a position of strength” the EU repeats its mantra, which has not brought the Ukraine an inch closer to victory in the past three years. It’s the opposite, in fact.
Despite this, the EU and most of its member states are still striving for what the Ukraine has been moving away from in the past three years – despite the comprehensive support of the US administration under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, with billions of dollars. It has not achieved anything so far.
For three years, the situation for Ukraine has been becoming increasingly precarious. Now, the EU and, with the EU, Germany want to continue this course alone, without US support. They believe that with a united European spirit, the goal of strengthening Ukraine can be achieved without the US. Obviously, the contact with reality has been completely lost in Brussels, Berlin, Paris and London.
That the intellectual grounding is missing in Western European capitals is evident in the next sentence of the statement, where the signatories demand to be involved in the negotiations.
“The Ukraine and Europe must be involved in all negotiations.” But why should they be? The EU and its member states, with the exception of Hungary and Slovakia, have contributed nothing to solving the conflict and, in the current statement, make it clear that they will not contribute anything in the future.
If one wants peace in Europe, then one must keep the EU and Germany out. There is no place for them at the negotiating table. This is the bitter recognition after three years of war. Western Europe does not want peace if it’s not the victory over Russia.
With their rejection of negotiations, with the will to solve the Ukraine conflict through military means, with the grandiose plan to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, the EU and, with it, Germany have maneuvered themselves into a dead end. In fact, they are the ones who have lost the war. They will, as is customary for the losers of wars, bear the costs.