MUNICH, Germany —
Germany’s foreign minister
warned Saturday against trying to guess or assume Russia’s decisions on Ukraine,
toning down the rhetoric after Washington’s fierce warnings of an imminent
invasion.
اضافة اعلان
“We do not know yet if an attack has been decided
on,” Foreign Minister
Annalena Baerbock said on the sidelines of the Munich
Security Conference, adding that the “threat against Ukraine is very real”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, attending
the same conference, also pushed back against Washington’s dire predictions.
“We do not think that we need to panic,” Zelensky
told an audience of top-level officials and security experts from around the
world.
US President
Joe Biden had said a day earlier that
he was “convinced” Russian President Vladimir Putin had “made the decision” to
attack Ukraine, sending fears soaring that a major conflict could break out in
Europe.
Baerbock made her
remarks after hosting a
G7 foreign ministers’ meeting on the fringes of the
Munich gathering, which has been dominated by the Ukraine crisis this year.
The group of seven most developed nations —
including the US — reaffirmed that they were “united” in their support for
Ukraine and determined to respond to any violation of its sovereignty, said
Baerbock, whose country holds the rotating G7 presidency.
“Pull your troops back, avoid damage to Russia and
Ukraine and let us talk,” Baerbock said in an appeal to Putin.
But the message of unity was slightly undermined by
Baerbock’s refusal to echo US claims that Russia could invade Ukraine any
moment now.
“In crisis situations, the most inappropriate thing
to do is to somehow guess or assume,” Baerbock told reporters, after being
repeatedly pressed on whether Germany shared Biden’s assessment.
Speaking on the main stage in Munich,
Zelensky said
it was “difficult for me to judge” the US intelligence behind the warnings, but
“I trust Ukrainian intelligence, who understand what’s going on along our
borders”.
Zelensky also touched on the toll the incessant
threat of war was taking on his country, both on people’s mental health and on
the economy.
“We need to preserve our stability. We need to keep
calm and be adults,” he said.
Nord Stream 2 spat
Western and
NATO allies have
been at pains to present a united front, warning Russia of severe consequences
in case of any further escalations.
Baerbock reiterated in Munich that Russia would face
“unprecedented” sanctions, some of which would bring economic pain to the
countries imposing them.
That includes potentially halting the
not-yet-certified Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, she
said, an issue that had previously driven a wedge in transatlantic relations.
The project, backed by Germany’s previous chancellor
Angela Merkel, has long irked the US and Germany’s European partners, who
believe it will be used as a geopolitical weapon by Putin.
Germany’s early reluctance to explicitly put
Nord Stream 2 on the list of possible sanctions exasperated allies, particularly
Washington, and raised doubts about Berlin’s resolve in the Ukraine crisis.
New Chancellor
Olaf Scholz travelled to Washington
earlier this month to reassure President Biden that Germany could be counted
on, and made clear that the pipeline would be stopped should Russia invade
Ukraine.
US Secretary of State
Antony Blinken, in an
interview with Germany’s Sueddeutsche newspaper, praised America’s
reinvigorated relationship with European allies and the “incredibly close
cooperation” with Germany.
The joint response to any Russian aggression will be
swift and determined, he said in Munich.
“I have never experienced such a level of
coordination before,” Blinken added, in comments translated into German.
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