Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was actually supposed to travel to Ukraine on Thursday – but nothing will come of it. Again star learned, the visit of the German head of state was canceled for security reasons.
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, according to information from star a trip to Ukraine planned for Thursday was canceled at short notice for security reasons. The reason was a recommendation from the relevant security authorities. These include the Federal Intelligence Service, the Federal Police and the Federal Criminal Police Office, which is responsible for personal protection. Steinmeier wanted to start by train on Wednesday and arrive in Kyiv on Thursday. As always with these trips, the preparations were made with the best possible secrecy. Steinmeier then decided on Tuesday evening to cancel the trip based on the latest assessments by the security authorities. It should be made up for in the near future. Steinmeier and Selenskyj have arranged a telephone call for this Thursday.
Steinmeier was discharged from Ukraine in April
It would have been Steinmeier’s first visit to Ukraine, having been disembarked from the Ukrainian side ahead of a trip originally planned for April. The background to the diplomatic affront was obviously Steinmeier’s Russia policy during his time as Federal Foreign Minister in the grand coalition. The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj had criticized, among other things, the Minsk Agreement, which came about through Franco-German mediation and was intended to end the military conflicts in eastern Ukraine.
Steinmeier’s disinvitation had severely strained Ukrainian-German relations. For this reason, Chancellor Olaf Scholz refrained from traveling to Kyiv for a long time. At the beginning of May, with a view to the head of state’s discharge, he said that this was “a remarkable event”. “That stands in the way of things,” said the Chancellor.
Chancellor Scholz ultimately before Steinmeier in Kyiv
A few days later, Selenskyj and Steinmeier spoke on the phone to clear up the differences. In the approximately 45-minute conversation, Selenskyj invited the German head of state to Ukraine. On June 16, almost four months after the Russian attack, Scholz traveled to Kyiv together with the Presidents of France and Romania, Emmanuel Macron and Klaus Johannis, and the Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi. They promised to work to ensure that Ukraine should be granted candidate status for membership of the European Union, which was decided by an EU summit shortly afterwards.
In August, the German embassy in Kyiv confirmed preparations for Steinmeier’s trip, but did not give a date. Before the war, Steinmeier was last in Ukraine on October 6th. He took part with Zelenskyj in the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the mass murders of Babyn Yar. In 1941, German task forces murdered more than 33,000 Jews within a few days in a ravine in the city of Kiev.
Source: Stern
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