Ukraine deemed former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder an “enemy of state.”
His inclusion to the list was announced by Ukrainian pro-government website Mirotworez. The website also has known connections to the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
He was included in the list because in Schröder said that he understood the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 in his interview with Aachener Nachrichten.
“Do you seriously believe that any Russian President will reverse this in the future? And one day you will have to acknowledge this reality,” he said. He also pointed out that the peninsula was “gifted to Ukraine by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954. Russia and Ukraine were then part of the Soviet Union back then.
The German Foreign Ministry said it “strongly condemned the list.”
“We have informed Ukraine of our position in the past and have insisted the Ukrainian government delete this website. We will now do this again,” a spokeswoman said. The website is run by an acquaintance of Ukraine Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.
The list of “enemies of the state” has thousands of entries, including Yulia Timoshenko, who is a former Prime Minister and is also considered a headliner in the upcoming Presidential Elections. Media also report that two individuals from the list were murdered in 2015. One of them was Oles Buzina, the killed journalist.
The former German chancellor is also a personal friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In March 2018, Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Minister Pavlo Klimkin called for EU sanctions against Schröder. No sanctions were even discussed on the EU side against the former chancellor.
Schroeder’s wife, Soyeon Schroeder-Kim, said she was concerned about the list. “In my country and my culture, we do not understand such attacks against a democratic politician, especially the former Chancellor,” she said.
The list is constantly being used to pressure people and public figures, who have a critical stance towards the modern Ukrainian regime. The list is one of the notable public examples of the censorship and political prosecution campaign, which is ongoing in Ukraine. The Kiev government is using a wide range of means, including threats to personal security, to combat its critics within the state. This campaign is intentionally ignored and indirectly supported by the so-called international community, led by the US and the EU.
>>“Do you seriously believe that any Russian President will reverse this in the future? And one day you will have to acknowledge this reality,” he said.<<
There's not going to be a single future Russian president who will give the Crimea. Just like there's not going to be a single US president who will reverse the dubious land grabs that the US made from Mexico and Hawaii, no British PM will ever let Scotland become independent, no Spanish PM will ever let Catalonia become independent and no Israeli PM will ever give up East Jerusalem and most of the West Bank.
Even the most pro-Western Russian future president will think not just twice, but ten times before returning the Crimea. Not unless he wants to survive the next election or popular uprising. Why Western politicians are under the illusion that a few sanctions will make Russia bend to its will what the Fascists hordes of Hitler could not do is a mystery.
Merkel can’t wait to be one of the Ukraine’s enemies of state too