The former chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) has condemned the Russian attack on Ukraine and backed the efforts of her SPD successor, Olaf Scholz, to stop President Vladimir Putin. “There is no justification whatsoever for this blatant breach of international law, I condemn it in the strongest possible terms,” said Merkel at the request of the German Press Agency on Friday in Berlin.
“My thoughts and my solidarity are with the Ukrainian people and the government led by President (Volodimir) Zelensky in these terrible hours and days,” stressed Merkel. All efforts by the Federal Government, together with the European Union, the USA and Germany’s partners in the G7 group of leading economic nations, NATO and the United Nations, “to put a stop to this war of aggression by Russia and President Putin as quickly as possible, have my full support”.
She follows the developments “with the greatest concern and sympathy,” said the former Chancellor. Merkel expressly mentioned that Russia’s renewed attack “on the territorial integrity and sovereignty of this independent state” this time affects the whole of Ukraine. In 2014, Russia occupied the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula of Crimea. During her term in office, Merkel made it a point to keep the channels of communication with Putin open.