Ukrainian lawmakers have lambasted German Ambassador to Ukraine Ernst Reichel for suggesting that local elections in Ukraine’s war-torn Donbas could be held even before the Kremlin withdraws Russian forces from the occupied territories.
“We believe that this announcement of the German ambassador to Ukraine contradicts the official German standpoint, and contradicts the Minsk agreement,” said Hanna Hopko, an independent Ukrainian lawmaker who chairs the Verkhovna Rada’s Committee on Foreign Affairs.
She said she was speaking on behalf of her committee, as well as for the committee on European integration and the entire parliament. About a dozen other lawmakers joined her at the rostrum of the Verkhovna Rada as she spoke on Feb. 7.
Ukrainian news outlet RBC.ua posted an interview with Reichel on Feb. 7, the day Ukraine and Germany celebrate 25-years of diplomatic relations.
In the interview, Reichel said that the main conditions for elections to be held in the territories of the Donbas that are occupied by Kremlin-led forces are security and compliance with European standards. Therefore, he said, any Ukrainian politician should be able to campaign there without fear.
“Elections in the Donbas may not necessarily be held only if there are no Russian forces, or (only if) a Ukrainian flag is raised over each city administration,” Reichel said, according to RBC.ua.
He noted that the parliamentary elections in German Democratic Republic in 1990 were held in the presence of the Soviet army and under East Germany’s then-communist regime.
“But the elections led to change,” he said. “I don’t claim that situation in Donbas is identical – I just want to say that everything depends on the circumstances. So we must change the situation to make elections possible.”
But Mustafa Nayyem, a Ukrainian lawmaker with the dominant Bloc of Petro Poroshenko, in a post on Facebook called the ambassador’s comparison a sign of ignorance. He said that the eastern territories of Germany had been occupied for 40 years by 1990, and he doubted that Reichel would have suggested his citizens have elections in the German Democratic Republic if “there were Grad multiple rocket launcher systems in residential areas of Dresden and Leipzig.”
“I think the ambassador has exceeded his authority and is abusing his status,” Nayyem wrote. “But this is not the biggest problem. The problem is that the ambassador hardly understands and appreciates the general sentiment in the country – the depth of the conflict and the real state of things.”
Hopko urged Ukrainian lawmakers and authorities to boycott a Feb. 7 reception at the German Embassy dedicated Ukrainian-German diplomatic ties.
She also invited Reichel to first visit cities on the front line in the Donbas, and then share his thoughts on the issue. Hopko also urged Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin to summon Reichel to the ministry to give an explanation.
Klimkin has done exactly that, the press service of the Foreign Ministry told the Kyiv Post.
The press service of the German Embassy in Ukraine has not yet responded to a request from the Kyiv Post for comment.
Kyiv Post staff writer Alyona Zhuk can be reached at [email protected]
