Annalena Baerbock is appalled by what happened in the Ukraine war. It was one of the “worst moments” of her tenure so far when she had to look at photos of killed children.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has sharply criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin in view of the many children among the victims of the war in Ukraine. In an interview with “Spiegel” she described it as one of the “worst moments” of her tenure so far when she saw photos of children who had been shot during a visit to Ukraine. “That says everything about the fact that you can’t negotiate with this Putin at the moment,” said the Green politician. “It’s about destruction. Even of children.”
Good foreign policy means keeping a cool head, “even when your heart is on fire.” “Having to endure the fact that you can’t do anything – that’s sometimes the brutality of foreign policy.” She would therefore like to have promised that “we guarantee humanitarian corridors from the contested areas in Ukraine”. But such a promise would have had to be secured militarily.
Although the West is supplying Ukraine with weapons, it has ruled out any military involvement in Ukraine. The reason given is that Putin could see such an approach as direct involvement of the West in the war.
Annalena Baerbock visits Nagasaki
On Sunday, Baerbock visited the Atomic Bomb Museum in the Japanese city of Nagasaki. “Nagasaki, like Hiroshima, is a memorial for us today that we all have to work together to achieve a world without nuclear weapons – even if it will be a long, hard road,” said the minister on Twitter.
Germany therefore supports disarmament initiatives such as the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty and the Non-Proliferation Treaty in order to “actively work on a nuclear disarmament strategy”. Baerbock wants to hold political talks in Tokyo on Monday.
On August 6 and 9, 1945, US forces dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two cities were destroyed and around 214,000 people were killed in the world’s first and only use of atomic bombs in a war. To this day, thousands of people in both cities are suffering from the long-term effects of radioactive radiation.
