The German Review

The German Review

Bull in a china shop diplomacy

Jörg Luyken's avatar
Jörg Luyken
Mar 30, 2022
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Dear Reader,

Perhaps you’ve heard of Andriy Melnyk, the Ukrainian ambassador to Berlin who might very well be the least diplomatic man ever to have run an embassy.

On his Twitter feed he regularly attacks the German political and intellectual establishment, sometimes very personally.

The Ukrainian embassy in Berlin. Photo: Shutterstock

“You are a real ars…” he wrote in response to Johannes Varwick, a politics professor from the University of Halle who argued that German weapons deliveries would “artificially prolong” an inevitable Russian victory. Varwick advised the Ukrainian leadership to give up the fight and go into exile.

To Fabio de Masi, a politician for Die Linke who accused Kyiv of lying over the presence of far-right extremists in its military, Melnyk retorted that: “You’re better off shutting your leftist mouth.”

Melnyk also upset Finance Minister Christian Lindner by revealing to a journalist the details of a confidential chat in which a smiling Lindner told him that the Russian…

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