The pope is asking for an audience with Putin, the British prime minister is speaking to the Ukrainian parliament via video link, and the chair of the US House of Representatives has just returned to the US from a visit to Kyiv.
Political leaders around the world are not only struggling to find solutions to the Ukraine war, they are also traveling there as a gesture of solidarity. This works smoothly everywhere – just not in Germany.
The chancellor and the opposition leader screw up even this seemingly simple but important task. It is perfectly legitimate to argue about the delivery of heavy weapons. However, the leaders of German politics should be able to make the important symbolic visit to the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accident-free.
Olaf Scholz does not want to go to Kyiv now because Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was uninvited by Selenski. “That stands in the way of things,” says Scholz.
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There is no need to mockingly call the chancellor an “offended liverwurst” like the Ukrainian ambassador Andriy Melnyk. But Ukraine’s case is about more than personal vanities and political etiquette.
The Ukrainians are fighting for their lives, an entire nation for its existence. Steinmeier and Scholz should just connect briefly. The Federal President would certainly have nothing against a trip by the Chancellor.
The planning of Friedrich Merz is similarly screwed up. The visit to Kyiv also got off to a rocky start and appears to be more of an act of desperation ahead of the state elections in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia.
The CDU boss has to score points in Düsseldorf in particular, and the pictures from the Ukraine are just right for that. The bottom line is that there seems to be a lot at stake, but not just the Ukrainians.
More: You can follow the current developments in the Ukraine crisis in our news blog