German-Ukrainian declaration: "Russia must immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders."
Ulrich Speck
94.7K posts
Ulrich Speck
@ulrichspeck
Foreign policy analyst
Heidelberg/Berlin
Joined June 2009
- "I don't need standing ovations, I need ammunition"Standing ovation for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this morning at the Munich Security Conference. @ZelenskyyUa #MSC2024
00:00 - If Germany and France are unable to build European security against Russia, the new European security order is going to be built around them.
- The sad irony: if the EU would have provided Ukraine with fighter jets (and other stuff) before Russia attacked, maybe Russia would have never attacked.
- It was always Polands biggest nightmare that Western Europeans would cut a grand bargain with Russia over their heads. Now all Europe is Poland.
- Warning shots Western capitals choose to (largely) ignore: - the brutal Chechen war (early 2000) - the Georgia war 2008 - annexation of Crimea 2014 - war against Ukraine since 2014 - war in Syria since 2015
- For Germans who invested so much in the partnership with Russia it's hard to accept that they were wrong. They always thought they were "rational", smarter than the Central Europeans who were warning about Russian aggression, and who the Germans saw as irrational, "traumatized".
- Some European countries take the military support for Ukraine very seriously -- because they understand that this is also their fight.🇵🇱🇺🇦 Poland will send 100 T-72 tanks to Ukraine.
- Rheinmetall-Chef: "Wenn ich Politiker wäre, würde ich heute ein 800-Milliarden-Programm auflegen. 200 Milliarden Euro für Sicherheit, 200 für Bildung, 200 für Infrastruktur und 200 für Digitalisierung. Ein solches Wachstumsprogramm für Deutschland könnte Europa mitziehen."
- If Germany and France had armed and trained Ukrainian forces in parallel to pursuing the diplomatic process with Russia (Normandy format), maybe Russia would have been deterred from attacking Ukraine in February 2022. Past is past, but there is a lesson for present and future.
- "Every war ends with a negotiated settlement." Except, for example, World War I and II, to name a few.
- What would Russia be without nukes, without oil and gas? Quite possibly a prosperous, peaceful democracy.
- The myth that a corrupt autocracy can build a powerful, efficient modern military force has been shattered in Ukraine. This must frighten Putin and Xi, and those around them. And it should reassure the free world.
- If someone got humiliated in the French-Russian relationship recently, it is France -- driven out of Mali by the Kremlin-controlled Wagner group.
