Kiev. June 1. INTERFAX-UKRAINE-President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky is grateful to Germany and its Chancellor Angela Merkel for their help and assistance to Ukraine, while noting that this assistance can be more, including defensive weapons.
"Angela Merkel has done a lot for Ukraine. It's true. And I am very grateful to her as a Ukrainian. We want more, and I expected more from her, especially in the Normandy format. We are grateful for what we have, but I know that Germany can do more. Because what they do for us, they do for themselves. I do not know why they do not understand this," Zelensky said in an interview with the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the text of which was published on the website of the head of state on Tuesday.
Commenting on the decision of the German government to reject the initiative of the leader of the German Green Party Robert Habeck to help Ukraine with defensive weapons, the President of Ukraine said that he was grateful to Habeck for this initiative, stressing that "I did not ask him to do this."
"I first met him two years ago, when I had an official visit to Germany (...) And he understood me, he understood that Nord Stream 2 is just a weapon, not an economic weapon, but a political weapon, a very powerful one...) He clearly understands that Ukraine has no navy, our shores are not protected, that such lethal weapons, that Germany has not provided us with any weapons, any military assistance since the beginning of the war. And it can - Germany has powerful ships, missile boats, patrol boats," the head of state said.
