On the fourth anniversary of the start of the war in Ukraine, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius criticized US President Donald Trump for treating Russian President Vladimir Putin as a friend, DPA reported, BTA reported.
Trump welcomed the Russian president "as a friend" when the two met in Alaska last year, while completely withdrawing military support for Ukraine, Pistorius told German radio station "Deutschlandfunk".
The minister also criticized Trump for "unnecessarily" rejecting the idea of Ukraine joining NATO too early. "This would be a trump card that could be used to negotiate other issues," he noted.
Pistorius also criticized Russia for its ongoing airstrikes on Ukraine, accusing Moscow of "terrorizing the civilian population in minus 20 degrees."
"And Russia is not gaining a single square meter of land; instead, the goal is to break the spirit of the Ukrainian people and destroy the country," he added.
The minister praised the courage and strength of the Ukrainian people after four years of war, acknowledging that the end may be far away. However, he stressed the importance of maintaining support for Ukraine in the negotiations, amid what he saw as a visible deterioration in the economic situation in Russia.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier paid tribute to the hundreds of thousands of people who died in the war during a ceremony in Berlin today.
At the same time, German Foreign Minister Johann Vaddeful said that Hungary and Slovakia would not be able to maintain their blocking of new EU sanctions against Russia. "I expect Hungary to accept" The 20th package of EU sanctions, Vaddeful told local "Inforadio".
He added that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban probably wanted to send a signal on the eve of the anniversary of the start of the invasion on February 24, 2022.
Senior EU officials, as well as European leaders, visited Kiev to mark the event.
The German minister criticized Orban, whose visit to Moscow in 2024 caused outrage in Europe, for his pro-Russian stance. "Sometimes it seems to me that he pays more attention to what (Russian President) Vladimir Putin likes than to what is in the interest of Europe. But we should not be annoyed by that," he noted.