2024-04-26 00:17:21
The military situation in Ukraine is dramatic. Robert Habeck wants to help her more. But his journey shows how difficult it will be.
The horror of this war sometimes breaks out unexpectedly in Ukraine. Robert Habeck stands in a classroom in Irpin, about an hour’s drive from Kiev. This is where the Ukrainians stopped the march on Kiev at the beginning of the Russian invasion. Despite fierce fighting at the beginning of March 2022, the Russians were never able to completely take Irpin, even though many Ukrainians had to flee and many were murdered, tortured and raped.
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Now everyday life is back in Irpin, at least a little. The German Vice Chancellor wants to celebrate the reconstruction of the school and a new solar system on the roof this Thursday afternoon. There are sheets of math exercises on the teenagers’ tables. Habeck wants to know how they feel now that they can learn together here again. And how long they couldn’t do that.
A young girl says she feels less anxious because she is with the people she loves again. Then another girl talks. She left Irpin on March 7th. She knows the exact date, even though it was two years ago. She was sitting in the car with her parents, there were several cars. They wanted to leave. But the Russians stopped them. In the end, only she and her parents survived. All the other cars behind them were shot at with guns, she says.
It was a massacre before their eyes. And now it’s math again.
Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck actually traveled to Ukraine to tell positive stories. To spread hope. To give courage. But just like in this classroom in Irpin, the horror of war keeps catching up with him. And with it the question of whether Germany is doing enough. Whether he is doing enough. It’s about survival now.
Things are going badly
As soon as Robert Habeck got off the special train at the train station in Kiev at 6:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, he let it be known that he knew what the situation was. His visit comes “at a time when Ukraine once again needs every support in its fight for freedom,” he said into the microphones in front of the procession. She is under “enormous military pressure.” Things are going badly, that’s what they say in plain English.
Vladimir Putin is trying to wear down the Ukrainians with almost daily air strikes. Trench warfare has developed on the front lines, a bloody battle in trenches. Major breakthroughs appear to observers to be only a matter of time. Ukraine not only lacks ammunition and weapons, but also soldiers.
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People can’t do it anymore, and many people don’t actually want to do it anymore. This is how observers describe it. But the Ukrainians are even less willing to surrender and live under Russian rule than this war. Many people have already had the painful experience of what that is like. They don’t trust Vladimir Putin, so they have to keep fighting. Somehow.
Armor first
Robert Habeck wants to do more to help Ukraine. This journey should make that clear to anyone who hasn’t yet understood it. Ukraine is fighting not only for its own freedom, but also “for the values that unite and define Europe.” That’s why the support is “in Germany’s highest self-interest.” He keeps trying to justify the help in one way or another. Which also shows that Habeck fears that the Germans could become tired of war.