Moscow Demands Clarification on Baerbock’s Statements

Jan. 27, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—TASS reports that Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (in Russian) “urged the German ambassador to Russia on Friday [Jan. 27] to clarify Berlin’s position on its status in the conflict in Ukraine.”

As Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel: “The German foreign minister said that her country was fighting jointly with other nations against Russia, while her ministry does not consider their own country to be party to the conflict. Taking into account these contradictory statements, the German ambassador to Russia should clarify them.”

After Baerbock’s Jan. 24 faux pas at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, the German Foreign Ministry tried to remedy it with a convoluted statement saying she did not mean what she said.

Russian Ambassador to Germany Sergey Nechayev told Izvestia yesterday that Berlin’s choice was Germany’s “final refusal to recognize its historical responsibility to our people for Nazi crimes.” This will only further aggravate the conflict, and runs counter to assurances by German politicians that Berlin is reluctant to get involved in it, Nechayev stated.

In Germany, Die Linke MP Zaklin Nastic filed a written inquiry to the government, asking whether Germany, via Baerbock’s statement at the Council of Europe, has declared war on Russia, according to a report in Berliner Zeitung yesterday.