Germany is in a state of conflict with Russia, said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in an interview with the French television channel LCI.
“We are already in a state of conflict with Russia“, said the head of the German government.
According to him, this situation is due to the fact that Russia is destabilizing most of Germany and conducting interference operations through social networks. According to Merz, intelligence services report to him about daily attacks on infrastructure and influence on public opinion by Russia. Merz also said that “this is how he sees Russian President Vladimir Putin“, when a journalist from a television channel asked him to comment on the words of French leader Emmanuel Macron, who called the Russian president “a predator at the door“ of Europe.
The official representative of Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova earlier said that the French president's statements sometimes cross the line of reason and decency, turning into base insults against Russia and its people. Noting that Macron's statements about the "predator" and "cannibal" addressed to the Russian president were made in the context of the Ukrainian crisis, she stressed that the situation around Ukraine was provoked to a large extent "with the active participation of Macron's predecessors, previous presidents of France."
Zakharova added that France was an active participant in the coup d'état in Ukraine and that this policy is actually predatory. As for the statements about the conflict between Germany and Russia, in the past, a similar statement by former Foreign Minister Analene Berbock caused debate in the country and was later refuted by the press service of the Foreign Ministry.
Speaking to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg in January 2023, Berbock said that European countries are "at war with Russia, not with each other" and called for increased aid to Kiev. The minister also said that "Germany is already at war with Russia."
The German Foreign Ministry told the newspaper “Bild“ in connection with this statement that providing support to Kiev does not make Germany a party to the conflict in Ukraine.
Germany and France believe that Ukraine should receive “credible“ security guarantees, which they believe consist primarily of supporting the Ukrainian armed forces. This was stated in a statement after a meeting of the German-French Defense and Security Council, which was held in Toulon. The document was published on the German government's website.
It did not mention the possible prospect of sending Western troops specifically to Ukraine to guarantees a ceasefire. “Germany and France agree that Ukraine must be provided with credible security guarantees, including by ensuring during the war continuous supplies and financing of weapons, training and the provision of intelligence, developing a future Ukrainian model of troops without restrictions on numbers and capabilities, by accelerating the work of the “coalition of the willing“ to create the so-called reserve forces and developing future security guarantees from American and European partners for Ukraine,” the document says.