Germany and Luxembourg will continue to support Ukraine - Foreign Ministers

This was stated by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Luxembourg Foreign Minister Xavier Bettel at a joint press conference in Berlin on January 5, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"We see that European values are under fire... Putin wants to stifle Ukraine's aspirations for freedom and thus threatens the peace of the whole of Europe," Baerbock said.

According to her, Russia continues its tactics of warfare - with bombs, missiles and artillery on maternity hospitals and civilian homes, so it is important to strengthen the winter protective shield over Ukraine with generators and transformers, as well as Patriot and Iris-T air defense systems, which can prevent much more dire consequences. The federal government, she promised, will continue to expand its support for Ukraine.

"We have no right to forget in the new year that Russia's terror against Ukrainians continues every day," the diplomat emphasized.

Her Luxembourg counterpart agreed that it is a wrong approach to think that it is "just a war in Ukraine and it does not concern us".

"We have to realize that if we do not help, if we look the other way, other countries will follow Ukraine," Bettel said.

He noted that he was one of the few government officials who maintained contact with President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky.

"And I can state that last year there was no desire on the part of the Russian side to seek any solution at all. I broke off contact with President Putin," the Luxembourg foreign minister said.

He added that the Russian leadership has destroyed and ruined everything that has been jointly built over the past 20-30 years together with Europeans - political, economic, cultural, scientific, educational cooperation - and all this cannot be restored with a snap of the fingers.

"Helping Ukraine defend itself also means standing up for values and continuing the European project," the diplomat said, reminding that Putin was happy about the escalation in the Middle East because he hoped it would divert attention from Ukraine.

Bettel is on his first visit to Germany as the Duchy's foreign minister (he has been in office since November 17, 2023). From 2013 to 2023, he was the country's Prime Minister.