Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) said he sees little chance that the war in Ukraine will end quickly through negotiations.
He told the newspaper “Rheinpfalz” and the outlets of the “Neuen Berliner Redaktionsgesellschaft” (NBR): “In my view this war will only be finished when one side is exhausted-whether militarily or economically. Reason and humanitarian arguments will not convince Putin. That is the bitter truth”.
He added that the goal of European efforts is to make it impossible for the Russian state to continue the war both on the battlefield and through its finances.
Merz described the current condition of Russia as “a state of the deepest barbarism”. He warned that this will not change in the foreseeable future, and that, therefore, we must accept the situation.
He also said the “Russian power clique” can’t imagine a future without war in the near term. “They must keep the war machinery running because they have no plan for what to do with the hundreds of thousands of soldiers-many of whom are severely traumatized-who return from the front”.