It was Baerbock’s first trip to Ukraine as a member of the Green Party. She said she was open to serious talks about security, but she was not willing to back down “on basic principles like territorial inviolability, the free choice of alliances and the renunciation of the threat of violence.” She said that if Russia, which has a lot of troops on Ukraine’s border, tried to attack, it would suffer great consequences.
“Each further aggressive act will have a high price for Russia, economically, strategically, politically” she said at a news conference with her Ukraine counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba. Baerbock is thought to be part of a younger group of German politicians who are very concerned about human rights and want to change Germany’s relationship with Moscow. The SPD-led German chancellery, on the other hand, is thought to be less willing to break with the policy of the former German chancellor, Angela Merkel.
Europe and the United States have been working very hard to show a united front inside Nato.
Russian troops are still on Ukraine’s doorstep after three high-level diplomatic meetings last week. In Kyiv, Baerbock said she would look into whether there could be a return to the four-way Normandy format talks that have been on hold for a long time. UNK, G7, and Nato all agreed that any more aggression by Russia would cost it a lot of money.
During last week’s debate in the Senate, Joe Biden tried to stop Republicans from trying to put sanctions back on Nord Stream 2, which runs through Ukraine. He did this mostly because he wanted to stay in discussions with Germany about how best to act.
In a press conference in Kyiv, Baerbock also said that Germany wants to help Ukraine develop hydrogen technology as an alternative to gas to lessen its reliance on Russia.
