Volodymir Zelensky reproached Germany for prioritizing the supply of Russian gas: “Putin builds a new wall”

The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, reproached Germany for prioritizing the economy and the supply of Russian gas, while warning that with the invasion of his country Moscow is “building a new wall” between “freedom and lack of freedom”.

“We warned them that Nord Stream 2 was a weapon. And his answer was economy, economy, economy,” Zelensky said, in a virtual speech in the Bundestag (lower house of Parliament), referring to the German-Russian gas pipeline and sanctions that, in his opinion, “are insufficient and come late”.

“Every bomb that falls, every decision that is not taken is a stone with which that wall is built,” added the Ukrainian president, whose speech by videoconference had been greeted with a standing ovation from the whole plenary.

Zelensky then addressed German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whom he asked to “be the leader that Germany needs” and to strongly support his country, something that cannot be limited, in his opinion, to the economic sanctions so far imposed against the environment of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Ukrainian leader enumerated in his message from the bombing of the besieged city of Mariupol to the rest of the attacks that his country suffers “day and night”, uninterrupted and “every day of the week”.

“It is difficult for us to survive all this without the help of the rest of the world, to defend Ukraine and to defend the free world of Europe,” he added, to insist on the metaphor of the wall, alluding to which Berlin left for decades.

He paraphrased then-US President Ronald Reagan's historic 1987 speech at the Berlin Wall, when he asked Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear it down.

“Mr Scholz, destroy that wall,” he said, later regretting that his country was receiving “more support” from across the Atlantic than in Europe itself.

(With information from EFE)

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