Ukraine Crisis

Wellmann: “condemnation is not right”

The court case against Nadezhda Savchenko, who have nothing to do with the rule of law with international law. Russia should solve the Problem quickly, said the CDU foreign policy expert Karl-Georg Wellmann.

Deutsche Welle: Mr. Wellmann, a Russian court has sentenced Nadezhda Savchenko to 22 years in prison. It found evidence that the Ukrainian fighter pilot with abetting murder of two journalists in Eastern Ukraine are guilty of. As expected the judiciary to put a very high penalty. How do you assess this judgment?

Karl-Georg Wellmann: This lawsuit has nothing to do with the rule of law, nor with international law. Russia is strongly recommended to solve the Problem quickly and discreetly through diplomatic channels.

Before the verdict, the international community has appealed to Russia, Savchenko release. Nevertheless, the penalty was set so high. This is an act of defiance on the part of Moscow?

Probably also. If you think about it, what has been done by Russia in the East of Ukraine. As a result of the Russian Aggression, almost 10,000 people have lost their lives. That Russia is now a case on the opposite side engages, and a woman who has shown no guilt, the Participant was in a war and claim, as any prisoners of war under the Hague regulations on land warfare are treated, is very strange.

The Federal government avoids the word “prisoners of war”. Also in the Minsk Protocol, it is not a question of prisoners of war, but the exchange of hostages and those unjustly detained. Why do you speak of a prisoner of war?

Because it is in fact so. Moscow has resulted in the Donbass against Ukraine war. Of course, the official reading that there were separatists. Ukraine says it was terrorists. As a result, it doesn’t matter whether Savchenko hostage or war prisoners. She was sentenced in a Russian jail and a long prison sentence. And this is not right.

Karl-Georg Wellmann: Savchenko has to claim to be a prisoners of war treated

Morning, Federal foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. What are the opportunities Berlin has, on the Russian side?

In reasonable conversations are not conducted in public. Announced by the Minister of foreign Affairs. What must finally be in the interests of all, the exchange of all prisoners or hostages. Both the Ukraine has quite a number of prisoners, as well as the other side. This must, and can, finally, be reasonable people solved.

There are already voices in the West, the demand because of the judgment, a kind of Magnitsky list, a Savchenko sanctions list against Russia. What do you think?

The Chancellor has always said that the sanctions can only be lifted if Minsk is fully met. We should not now operate an escalation spiral, and other things, but the things politically and diplomatically solve. I see a certain amount of willingness on the Russian side. I see a willingness on our side. It must be sought in the interest of the people of such a solution, and found that the Kill and shooting to stop, and finally back to a sensible situation in the Donbass stop.

You know very well in the political situation in Kiev. Is for Kiev at all of the interest that Savchenko comes free? You can’t be for today’s political Elite in Kiev is dangerous if it occurs more as an icon, trapped in Russia, but in Kiev, possibly with their own political ambitions?

I don’t think anyone in Kiev is so cynical. Savchenko is something of a folk heroine. Everywhere in the public life of your photo “hangs Savchenko Freed”. This is in the interests of the entire Ukrainian people. Political games, I don’t see it.

Karl-Georg Wellmann sitting since 2005 for the CDU in the Bundestag and Chairman of the German-Ukrainian parliamentary group.

The interview was conducted by Nikita Jolkver