BERLIN — German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius on Sunday reacted with skepticism to a Chinese ceasefire proposal for the struggle in Ukraine.
“When I hear reports—and I don’t know whether they are true—according to which China may be planning to supply kamikaze drones to Russia while at the same time presenting a peace plan, then I suggest we judge China by its actions and not its words,” he instructed German public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk in an interview.
Pistorius was echoing feedback by NATO and the European Commission who each raised doubts on Friday about Beijing’s credibility as a mediator after it printed a ceasefire proposal.
Beijing supplied the proposal on Friday, the primary anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy welcomed some parts of the Chinese proposal however stated solely the nation the place a struggle is being fought needs to be the initiator of a peace plan.
Pistorius underlined it was as much as Kyiv to determine when and beneath what situations to enter talks with Moscow, and he urged the identical was true for any choice on recapturing the Crimea peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
“I am leaning towards saying, yes, Crimea is Ukrainian territory and it therefore has to be given back,” he stated within the interview. “But again: This is not a decision that’s up to us to take.”
Zelenskiy says his troops will ultimately drive Russia from all of the captured territory, together with the Crimea peninsula. — Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
