Andrey Melnik was angered by another interview with the German president.
According to Strana.ua, Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andriy Melnik criticized the President of this country Frank-Walter Steinmeier for his words about the contribution of the Soviet Union to the victory over Nazism, and about supporting the construction of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline.
In an interview, the German president spoke in favor of completing the construction of the Nord Stream, calling “energy relations almost the last bridge between Russia and Europe, which remained after a significant deterioration in relations” between Germany and the Russian Federation in recent years. Arguing his opinion, Steinmeier said that for the Germans “another completely different dimension is important – a look at a very volatile history with Russia”, recalling that June 22 marks the 80th anniversary of the German attack on the Soviet Union and that more than 20 million people became victims of the war in the former USSR.
“This does not justify the false Russian policy today, but we have no right to lose sight of this broader context”, – concludes President Steinmeier.
Commenting on Steinmeier’s interview with the Rheinische Post, Melnik said that such an interpretation, when the USSR is automatically equated with Russia, is “an absolutely unacceptable distortion of history and direct disregard of the exorbitant sacrifices of other peoples”, primarily the Ukrainian one, which were part of the Soviet state during the brutal Hitlerite
Germany suffered huge human losses and were subjected to total destruction.
“If, during his visit to Kiev, Mr. Steinmeier had visited the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in World War II on the Dnieper slopes, he would have learned that it was the Ukrainian people who suffered colossal losses during the Nazi invasion and the war unleashed by the Third Reich on extermination and enslavement”, – the ambassador continues.
Melnik also expressed regret that, as the recent debates in the Bundestag showed, the members of the German parliament are still not ready to recognize the huge price that the Ukrainian nation paid when the German terror raged, as well as our contribution to the victory over National Socialism.