Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has plunged Europe into a period of insecurity, Germany said on Friday, a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin predicted a “dangerous” decade for the next decade.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a wing of the German Social Democrats that has long advocated closer economic ties with Moscow, said the February 24 invasion had shattered those hopes.
“When we look at Russia today, there is no room for old dreams,” said Steinmeier, referring to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s dream of a “common European home”.
“It also brought us to another time in Germany, a distrust that we thought we had overcome: a time marked by war, violence and flight, fears about the outbreak of war in Europe in flames.”
“More difficult years, more difficult years await us.”
Clinging to European sanctions against Russia and arms deliveries to Ukraine, Germany has seen more than a million Ukrainian refugees arrive and has warned of a possible power outage this winter following cuts to Russian gas supplies.
Speaking at a conference in Moscow on Thursday, Putin downplayed the possibility of a nuclear standoff with the West, but accused Western leaders of fomenting war in Ukraine, which he said was justified by Kiev’s expressed desire to join NATO.
“We have arguably the most dangerous, unpredictable and at the same time important decade ahead of us since the Second World War,” Putin said, adding that Western domination of world affairs is over.
The Russian leader insisted that the Ukrainian war, which Moscow called a “special military operation”, was planned as the two sides prepared for a major battle in Kherson in southern Ukraine.
The region, one of four partially occupied provinces that Russia declared annexed last month, controls both the only land route to the Crimean peninsula, taken by Russia in 2014, and the mouth of the Dnipro River, which cuts through Ukraine.
The Russian-appointed leader of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, said that work has been completed to relocate residents who want to flee from Kherson to Russia’s regions ahead of the expected Ukrainian counterattack.
Ukraine has accused Moscow of forcibly dismissing some people and hiring others to fight against their will. The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the so-called withdrawal continued, hospital and commercial equipment had been removed, and extra Russian forces were deployed to vacant homes.
Reuters was unable to confirm the battlefield reports.
source: Noticias
