The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has told German newspaper Rheinische Post that the international community should not expect a quick end to the Russian aggression against Ukraine. He said that even when the war ends, getting back to normal would take a significant amount of time.
He indicated that it would take a long time to clear up the effects of this war but that the war was unavoidable because “borders must never be moved by force.” Ukraine, he assured, must be given security guarantees for the future.
All this talk from Scholz would be convincing were it not for the revelation that Scholz still regularly speaks to Putin by phone. Moreover, these calls are often “one hour or even one and a half hours long” and are often held in the German language. Scholz reported that Putin was “polite” during the conversations, even though the two men disagreed markedly.
We have now had 400 days of war, countless numbers of crimes, cruelty and cynicism. There have been atrocities against civilians, the kidnapping of Ukrainian children and attempts to starve and freeze Ukraine into submission. We have also concluded that Berlin was at fault for its emboldening of Putin with the policy of making Germany dependent on Russian gas, and Germany has acknowledged that the policies of Schroeder and Merkel were a mistake and would be changed.
However, Scholz is still prepared to hold regular calls with Putin and says the talks are courteous. This implies that nothing has changed and that what Berlin does and says is a smoke screen while it still hopes to return to the dream of the great deal with Russia. This is the only way we can interpret such calls.
We must be aware that until there is a real spectacular change in German attitudes, the danger of a German-Russian pincer movement against Poland along with the entire region is still a danger, and our security will be a commodity to be traded by our western neighbor.
Today, we can see clearly how we have to continue the program of rearmament, which the Polish government has started. We have to be capable of guaranteeing our own security. We can also be sure that allowing Brussels, and in reality Berlin, to have control over EU foreign policy is a threat to both our sovereignty and security. We cannot trust Germany to take our security and interests into account.
Finally, we must also realize what is really at stake in this autumn’s election. Without a government in Warsaw that is committed to maintaining Polish independence and sovereignty, Berlin and Moscow will rebuild what today seems to be defunct.
