Federal Foreign Office - 26.02.2026 - Speech by Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul in the German Bundestag on the occasion of the motion by the coalition “Defending peace and security in Europe – solidarity with Ukraine on the anniversary of Russia’s war of aggression”

 

Speech 26.02.2026 Federal Foreign Office

Speech by Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul in the German Bundestag on the occasion of the motion by the coalition “Defending peace and security in Europe – solidarity with Ukraine on the anniversary of Russia’s war of aggression”

Monday I met Ukrainian soldiers who were visiting Berlin. All of them commandersOn  who had come straight from the frontline. Who have been fighting for four years. Who are now returning to the frontline.  If anyone had asked them before Russia’s war of aggression began, let’s say six or seven years ago, what they wanted to do with their lives, I imagine none of them would have said: My plan for my life is to lie in trenches in the ice and the snow. To drive an engine to the frontline through a hail of kamikaze drones. To launch an attack on fortified positions.  Before Russia’s full-scale invasion they were all civilians. A student. A GP. A social worker who used to work with addicts before the war. A historian. One was a theatre director.  They had – and I’m putting this in inverted commas – “normal” lives, “normal” professions. Until the Kremlin forced them into a war that leaves them with only one choice: to fight.  Because surrendering is not an option.  Russia’s invasion has been criminal from the outset – yet for weeks, months now it has reached a new level of perfidiousness. For we are seeing how the Kremlin is subjecting Ukraine in the middle of the bitterest winter to a campaign of terror that is targeting the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. Children, old people, sick people. Schools, apartment buildings, hospitals, indeed entire neighbourhoods are without electricity, without heating, without water. In Kyiv alone we are talking about up to half a million people.  Because Putin’s troops are deliberately destroying the civilian energy infrastructure. These attacks violate international law. They are war crimes and they are taking place every single day. Putin is doing this to erode Ukraine from the inside. To break the Ukrainian people’s will to resist. Because he wants the country to bow to his brutality.  However, the country and its people are not willing to bow. And for this, dear colleagues, hopefully with your support, I would like to express our greatest respect for the Ukrainian people and for their unwavering heroic courage, and also our gratitude.  The Kremlin leaves us in no doubt about what it is trying to achieve. The destruction of the Ukrainian culture. The dissolution of its national identity. That is how imperial revisionism works.  For at the end of the day, the Kremlin’s goal is to establish an illiberal world of autocracies which challenges the democratic West.  Which undermines our liberal and democratic way of life. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is part of a larger attack on the rules-based international order. On Europe’s security architecture. That is what this brutal war of conquest is about.  However, what Putin has underestimated is the resilience of the Ukrainian people. The courage of the Ukrainian soldiers. The national consciousness of an entire country. And the solidarity of the West and its ability to act, all the while standing firmly by Ukraine’s side. That is why we are supporting Ukraine with additional air defence.  That is why we are providing support to protect the energy infrastructure and repair energy plants. Not just for this winter, but also in preparation for the next one.  That is why we in the European Union are putting together a 90-billion-euro assistance package.  That is why we intend to further tighten our sanctions, which are hitting Putin and his war economy hard.  That is why we are supporting Ukraine along its path towards EU membership.  For Putin should be clear about one thing: Ukraine will not abandon the European path of reform that it has embarked upon. Institutionally, the country is already more closely linked to the West than ever before.  And we Europeans have a clear goal in mind. We must achieve a just and lasting peace.  Ukraine will only be able to attain this peace from a position of strength. We must put it in this position.  That is why we will keep increasing the pressure on Putin through sanctions and with a united approach to tackle Russia’s shadow fleet. That is why Russian assets worth billions will remain frozen.  Yesterday, together with my colleagues, I outlined the united stance adopted by Poland, France and Germany in a newspaper article. We need to have more stamina than Putin – and we will have more stamina when it comes to supporting Ukraine. Four years on, it is not only Ukraine that is a different country. Europe, too, is different than it used to be.  A Europe that senses that we are standing at a crucial historic crossroads.  For this reason we are taking a stand with our principles, with the values of our democracy and also with our political culture.  I say this also with regard to Hungary.  For I don’t believe it is right for Hungary to betray European sovereignty for the sake of its own fight for freedom. In Europe we have already seen what it means when the law of the strong prevails. When the world is divided into spheres of power.  Now, now more than ever, it is crucial that we as Europeans stand together and do not allow anyone to divide or provoke us, that we take a confident stance, that we embody European sovereignty. Ukraine has four long years of war behind it. Four years of immeasurable sacrifice. Yet also four years of unbroken strength and remarkable heroic courage.  Four years in which the country has defended its own freedom and the freedom of the whole of Europe.  Our freedom.  For this, we should be grateful.