As of: 07/09/2022 10:19 p.m
Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has recalled his country’s ambassador to Germany, Melnyk. Melnyk has recently been increasingly criticized. However, the dismissal is a normal process, Zelenskyj emphasized.
The Ukrainian ambassador Andriy Melnyk has to vacate his post in Germany. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recalled the 46-year-old diplomat, as did the Ukrainian ambassadors in Norway, the Czech Republic, Hungary and India. Reasons were not given in the decree published by the President’s Office in Kyiv.
Selenskyj spoke of a normal process. “This issue of rotation is a common part of diplomatic practice,” he said in a video message, without naming any of the five ambassadors. It was initially unclear whether Melnyk would be appointed ambassador to another high-ranking post in Kyiv or elsewhere after his dismissal.
The Ukrainian embassy in Berlin declined to comment on the decree. According to the Czech media, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian embassy in Prague also spoke of a planned change of several ambassadors. A spokeswoman for the Federal Foreign Office said on request: “The Federal Foreign Office has not yet been notified of the ambassador’s dismissal.”
Matthias Deiß, ARD Berlin, on the dismissal of the Ukrainian Ambassador Melnyk
Tagesschau 8:00 p.m., 9.7.2022
Also known for undiplomatic actions
Melnyk has been ambassador to Germany since January 2015 – an exceptionally long time for a diplomat. He had caused a stir in recent months with his sharp criticism of the federal government. Among other things, he accused Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and his ministers of being too hesitant to deliver weapons to fight the Russian attackers in Ukraine.
Melnyk did not shy away from very clear words. When Scholz initially canceled a trip to Kyiv after Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier had been uninvited, Melnyk called Scholz an “offended liverwurst”, but later apologized for it.
Melnyk accused the Federal President of being too close to Russia. Steinmeier had been making a “spider web of contacts” for decades – Melnyk literally told the “Tagesspiegel”. According to “Spiegel”, the ambassador described the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael Roth, as an “asshole”.
Criticism for statements about Bandera
Last week he himself came under massive criticism for his statements about the Ukrainian nationalist and anti-Semite Stepan Bandera. Bandera was the leader of the radical wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) during World War II. Nationalist partisans from western Ukraine were responsible for ethnically motivated expulsions in 1943, in which tens of thousands of Polish and Jewish civilians were murdered.
In an interview with journalist Tilo Jung, Melnyk denied that Bandera was a mass murderer of Jews and Poles. The nationalist was deliberately demonized by the Soviet Union. The Israeli embassy then accused the ambassador of “distorting historical facts, playing down the Holocaust and insulting those who were murdered by Bandera and his people”. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has distanced itself from Melnyk’s statements.
After days of silence, Melnyk rejected the accusation that his statements about Bandera played down the Holocaust. “Anyone who knows me knows: I have always condemned the Holocaust in the strongest possible terms,” Melnyk wrote on Twitter. The allegations against him are “absurd”.
Göring-Eckardt: “Tireless voice for free Ukraine”
Bundestag Vice President Katrin Göring-Eckardt paid tribute to Melnyk after his dismissal became known. “Andriy Melnyk has worked with all his might for his country. He is an unmistakable and tireless voice for a free Ukraine,” said the Green politician, but emphasized that she did not agree with Melnyk when it came to Bandera as a person. “Regardless of that, I wish him all the best for himself personally, for his future service and above all for his country.”
Melnyk had recently admitted errors in his communication. He could understand criticism of his person, he told the “Schwäbische Zeitung”. “In retrospect, I regret many emotional statements.” The Ukrainian Embassy in Berlin published the interview on its website on Friday. With regard to the Russian attack on his country, Melnyk said: “My job here in Germany as a diplomat is becoming political. (…) Even if I don’t want it to be.” His task is “that people here in Germany understand what the bloodiest war on our continent since the Second World War means.”