Sahra Wagenknecht, head of the BSW, accuses Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of seeking to drag NATO into the war with Russia, claiming the president does not reflect the position of his citizens, according to Zeit Online.
Earlier, MPs from the Alternative for Germany (AdG) and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) boycotted Ukrainian President’s speech in the Bundestag, saying they refused to listen to the speaker “in a camouflage suit,” according to leaders of the AfD parliamentary group Alice Weidel und Tino Chrupalla.
The AfD leaders said the executive board of the parliamentary group decided Monday to refrain from Zelensky’s speech as Ukraine is in need of a peaceful president willing to negotiate to stop the death toll and for the country to have a future. BSW politician Sevim Dağdelen told AFP news agency:
By standing aside, we are also sending a message of solidarity to all those Ukrainians who wish for an immediate ceasefire and a negotiated solution, instead of being forcibly recruited by President Zelensky as cannon fodder for a no-win war.
The gesture by the two parties drew criticism from Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who said that such behaviour was disrespectful, according to his statement to the capital’s ARD studio. CDU leader Friedrich Merz also criticised the politicians, saying the following: “People may have different views on helping Ukraine. Still, the fact that you, as a member of the German Bundestag, deny respect to the president of this war-threatened country is a real low point in the culture of our parliament.”
BSW, for its part, criticised German arms deliveries to Ukraine, saying that “Russia’s recent signals that they are ready for a ceasefire along the current front line and are seeking a peaceful solution must receive the Western and Ukrainian sides and be examined for their seriousness.”
Zelensky does not speak on behalf of the whole of Ukraine – Sahra Wagenknecht
Sahra Wagenknecht defended the absence of members of her party BSW during Ukrainian President’s speech in the Bundestag because she had no wish to see the speech in a setting which implies no discussion and has only “applause as the only reaction,” according to her in the ARD programme maischberger. She said that if members of her party had attended and refrained from just applause, it would have come as “an insult” towards BSW. She reiterated her call for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia and criticised President Zelensky for his actions regarding mobilisation:
I don’t think Zelensky speaks on behalf of the whole of Ukraine. For example, he clearly is not speaking for the 600,000 young people who have fled to the European Union as they don’t want to be conscripted and because they don’t want to die in this war, which is understandable, she said, noting the increasingly harsh forms of recruitment in Ukraine that the state has undertaken to allow more soldiers to be conscripted in the future.
According to her, the war in Ukraine as a “proxy war” between Russia and NATO for which Ukraine and its residents would sacrifice. She also told the Maybrit Illner talk show on Thursday night that she rejects NATO’s current approach to Putin: her slogan is disarmament instead of rearmament, even when it comes to defence. Speaking on the deployment of long-range weapon systems in Germany, she stated the following:
Many civilian casualties in Ukraine are also due to missiles being intercepted and debris hitting residential areas.
In consequence, she claimed that not only did debris hit a women’s medical centre in Kyiv on Monday, “the first reports came also from a children’s hospital that it was also falling debris.” In response to comments suggesting the missile was allegedly Russian, she indicated that “it has not been confirmed,” as the mere discovery of missile parts cannot prove the attack was aimed at a hospital.
I don’t know the situation, I just know that in war there are lies on all sides. Maybe the Russians are lying, maybe the Ukrainians are lying, she added.
Sahra Wagenknecht’s stance on the war led to a break with the Left Party, of which she had long been a prominent representative. With the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, she now has six per cent in the European elections.
