Third visit to Berlin
Selenskyj is to speak in the Bundestag on Tuesday
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Since the beginning of the war, the Ukrainian president has come to Berlin twice. A third visit could follow next week. According to a newspaper report, Zelensky will then also speak to members of parliament.
According to information from the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” (FAZ), Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj is coming to Berlin on Tuesday and is also expected to give a speech in the Bundestag. The occasion is likely to be the reconstruction conference for Ukraine, which the Foreign Office is hosting in the capital next week. There had already been speculation as to whether Selenskyj would also travel there himself.
According to the FAZ, the chairman of the German-Ukrainian parliamentary group, the Green Party politician Robin Wagener, had, among others, campaigned for a speech by Zelenskyj to the Bundestag. “The opportunity for a speech in the highest German parliament would be an important sign of our solidarity and friendship with Ukraine and an expression of our respect for the country's achievements,” he said in a letter to Bundestag President Bärbel Bas.
It would be Zelensky's third visit to Berlin since the outbreak of war. He last met with Chancellor Olaf Scholz there in February. However, it would be the first time he spoke in person in the Bundestag. The MPs would have to come together for a special session for this.
Zelensky is currently in France and will be received by President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace today. Several contracts are to be signed at a meeting with French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu. In a television interview this evening, Macron promised Ukraine the delivery of Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets. The president announced that Ukrainian pilots would be trained in France starting in the summer.
The reconstruction conference in Berlin, which is expected to attract around 1,500 guests from Ukraine's allied states, is likely to focus primarily on rapid emergency aid in view of the massive Russian attacks on the country's civilian infrastructure.
