German Chancellor Olaf Scholz emphasized the readiness of the North Atlantic Alliance to prevent the expansion of the scale of the war launched by Russia against Ukraine. “Putin should not underestimate NATO’s determination to protect all its members,” Scholz said in a televised address to German citizens on the evening of Thursday, February 24.
According to him, this applies to all NATO partners in Eastern Europe – the Baltic countries, as well as Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia. Alliance partners are unanimous in their opinion that “by all means available to us” it is necessary to prevent the conflict from spreading to other countries, Olaf Scholz said. “Germany and its allies know how to defend themselves,” he warned.
“This is Putin’s war, not the Russian people’s”
By invading Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is trying to forcibly change the borders in Europe and “possibly erase an entire country from the map of the world,” the head of the German government said. “We are witnessing the beginning of a war that we have not seen in Europe for more than 75 years,” he said, adding that the responsibility for this war lies with the Russian president personally. “This war is Putin’s war,” Olaf Scholz stressed. “He alone, not the Russian people, decided on this war.”
He again called on Putin to withdraw troops from Ukraine. “Immediately stop hostilities, withdraw troops from the territory of Ukraine, revoke the recognition of the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which is contrary to international law,” the politician demanded. According to Scholz, the sanctions that the EU plans to impose on Russia against the backdrop of its aggression in Ukraine will hit the Russian economy hard. “Putin will not win,” the German Chancellor stressed.
Aggression against Ukraine
On the night of February 24, the President of the Russian Federation announced the start of a war against Ukraine, calling it a “special military operation in the Donbass” in order to protect people who “have been subjected to genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.” Putin’s claims of genocide have previously been refuted by both the European Union and the United Nations. Western politicians accused the Russian president of lying.
Russia recognized “DNR” and “LNR”
On the evening of February 21, Russia recognized the separatist “DNR” and “LNR”. Later, Putin said that the “independence” of these entities is recognized within the borders of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine. The Federation Council of the Russian Federation allowed the president to use the army in eastern Ukraine, near the borders of which about 150,000 Russian troops were concentrated.
Kiev and the world community have sharply condemned the gross violation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. The European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada have decided on new sanctions against Russia, Japan and Australia intend to follow them.
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