Friedrich Merz picks pro-Kyiv foreign minister and promises German support for Ukraine
Speaking days before he is due to take power, Merz said on Monday it was 'no time for euphoria' as his conservative CDU met to approve an agreement to form a coalition government with the Social Democrats.
Promising to tackle Russian aggression and the rise of the far right, he told party colleagues: 'The pillars we have relied on over the past years and decades are crumbling around us. Trust in our democracy is damaged like never before in our country's postwar history.'
Merz, a former banker, said that Johann Wadephul, a conservative MP who has long advised Merz on foreign policy, would become the new foreign minister.
Wadephul has been a supporter of military backing for Ukraine and recently told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) newspaper the war in Ukraine 'is not about a few square kilometres in Ukraine but rather the fundamental question of whether we will allow a classic war of conquest in Europe'.
Merz said that despite domestic misgivings about Germany's role in Ukraine, with some calling for a halt to weapons deliveries, there were 'no ifs or buts' about its continued support. Vladimir Putin's invasion, he said, was nothing less than a battle 'against the entire political order of the European continent'.
Germany, he stressed, would remain 'on the side of this attacked country and therefore on the side of all people in Europe who are committed to democracy and the rule of law…to freedom and an open society.'
His statement came hours after Boris Pistorius, a social democrat who is widely expected to continue in the role as defence minister, said Donald Trump's peace deal proposals were 'akin to a capitulation'.
Pistorius and Wadephul are expected to work closely together in a newly formed national security council to represent Germany on the European and international stage.
In a nod to Trump but without naming him, Merz said on Monday: 'We have come to the realisation that we can no longer be certain of the transatlantic relationship in the spirit of freedom and the rules-based order.'
Merz and his government are due to be sworn into parliament on 6 May, ending six months of political gridlock. His conservative CDU/CSU alliance agreed a deal to coalesce with the Social Democrats (SPD) after winning a federal election on 23 February, in which the far-right populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) came second.
The results of a poll of the SPD's 365,000 members approving the deal is expected on Wednesday. Only once they have given the green light will the SPD announce its cabinet ministers, said the party's co-leader Lars Klingbeil.
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Over recent months, amid a sense of stasis and growing dissatisfaction across the country, the AfD has crept up in the polls and is now for the first time ahead of the conservatives.
Merz has pledged to reduce the AfD, which had managed to take advantage of people's fear and insecurity he said, to the 'marginal phenomenon' it once was. He would do so, he said, by tackling 'irregular' immigration that had 'got out of hand' over the past decade, an allusion to his predecessor Angela Merkel's so-called open-door policy which saw about 1 million refugees come to Germany.
Among his surprise appointments is that of Karsten Wildberger, the chief executive of Ceconomy, the parent company of the German electronic retailers Saturn and Mediamarkt, who will head up a new ministry for digitalisation and modernisation of the state.
He will, in part, be responsible for deciding how a special multibillion euro fund – controversially passed by the outgoing government to boost Germany's ailing infrastructure and its shrinking economy, as well as strengthening its defence forces – is to be spent.
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Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
How to secure a peace deal in Ukraine without starting World War III
Twenty-six years ago a tall, stooping man in a maroon beret and a powerfully-built figure with hooded eyes in green camouflage stood opposite one another in a Balkan field. The taller of the two produced a hip flask. A conversation began. And an understanding was reached. Thus the last confrontation between Russian and British troops – a stand-off over control of Kosovo's Pristina airport – was resolved without bloodshed. One of those men – the British General Sir Mike Jackson, who in the run-up to the confrontation had warned his Nato superior about what was at stake, saying 'Sir, I'm not going to start World War III for you' – is now dead. The second, colonel-general Viktor Zavarzin, is retired from the military and sits as a member of the Russian parliament. Now, British and Russian troops may soon find themselves in a high-stakes armed stand-off once again across what is Ukraine 's front line. If they do, how do those British forces offer a credible guarantee to Kyiv and secure any peace deal – without really starting World War III? The peacekeeping paradox What is sure is that planning is already under way. With Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin seemingly moving slowly towards a peace deal for Ukraine, British military chiefs – along with their French and American allies – are laying plans for preserving the truce should they succeed. Details so far are scarce. Admiral Tony Radakin, the Chief of the Defence Staff, was presumably hammering them out with Americans when he flew to Washington this week. What is known is that the discussion is not about peacekeeping in the orthodox sense of neutral blue helmets holding the ground between two warring sides. Rather, says Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King's College London, it is drawn from the design of Nato itself: a tripwire force of Europeans whose deaths in combat would put Russia at war with the West, and thus provide a deterrent against invasion. Yet as a so-called 'reassurance force' it will face many of the same dilemmas as both traditional peacekeepers and conventional war fighters. If it is to succeed, say veterans of previous peacekeeping operations, its planners must learn from the mistakes of the past – starting with the basic question of what it aims to achieve? Will its commanders have the latitude to defuse crises as Gen Jackson did with his whisky? Or will impossible choices be pushed down to officers, non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and even privates on the ground because politicians and diplomats find it convenient to fudge their mandate? 'Telling the soldiers exactly what they've got to do is crucial,' says Col Bob Stewart, a former British officer who commanded peacekeepers in Bosnia in the 1990s. 'But also they've got to have flexibility. This is the conundrum.' When can we fire? For Col Stewart, a veteran of one of the most high-profile and debated peacekeeping missions of the post-Cold War era, the mandate is the only means of giving the troops on the ground a clear sense of 'direction'. 'They must have a mission,' he says. '[In Bosnia] I didn't have one for three months, so I made one up – to save lives. That might not sound like a big deal, but for soldiers it is crucial. 'If you are going to send British soldiers into Ukraine, be bloody careful and sure about what you are asking them to do.' The next problem, he says, follows on from the first. 'When can a peacekeeping force open fire? Can it open fire only to protect itself? There's a real problem there, because that means it doesn't open fire to protect civilians. Can it open fire to protect human life?' Being handed vaguely-worded mandates and inadequate rules of engagement have been blamed for some of the most notorious peacekeeping failures, including the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia a year later. The former saw an estimated 800,000 people slaughtered. The latter, 8,000, becoming Europe's worst single post-war massacre. In the Ukrainian context, that means deciding whether British soldiers would stand aside while Russia re-invaded Ukraine, provided no bombs landed near their base, or enter the fight. Will Britons really kill Russians? No one seems to want to say this bluntly. Put the question to a Western official, and they will generally reply with something about how very the point of the deployment is to prevent such a clash from happening. But willingness to fight the Russians 'has to be the implication – otherwise, there's no point in even talking about it,' says Freedman. 'I think the British assumption would be that the first line of defence has to be Ukrainian. And the first, and the best, thing you can do is to keep on building up Ukrainian capabilities, which are now, in many ways, quite impressive. 'But if you're saying 'we're behind them', there's no point unless you assume that if the Russians violated an agreement and aggressed again, they would have to reckon on fighting Western forces.' Will there be enough of us? The 'coalition of the willing' must, therefore, have a mandate to fight if necessary. And if it is to fight, it must have sufficient numbers of boots on the ground to win. But how many boots would that be? For every soldier deployed on a rolling operation, says Freedman, an army needs to have one in training and one coming out of deployment. For example, he points out, to keep a hypothetical 15,000 troop force on the ground would require a commitment of 45,000 men to the mission. No government has yet put a figure on the actual size of the force they want on the ground. Britain and France simply do not have the capacity to field a very large force, even with contributions from those other Nato and European allies willing to contribute. Other allies – Australia has said it is considering involvement, and Japan has said it would play an as yet undefined role – face similar limitations. That's one reason why initial discussion of a Franco-British coalition of the willing deployment earlier this year came to nothing. 'They started to put something together without really having thought it through,' says Freedman. 'And then as they started to think it through, they sort of saw it was dangerous. It was not credible, because you were talking about having large numbers of European troops on Ukrainian soil, which is actually quite a big commitment. The ideas sort of drifted away into more air power support and sea support, and it's not clear how much we've moved beyond that.' The America factor The missing piece of the jigsaw then was securing American buy-in, the ultimate source of credible deterrent. To address Trump's aversion to putting boots on the ground, Keir Starmer had suggested a 'backstop' – US aircraft based in neighbouring countries to provide air cover in the event of war. The White House was not interested when this was first floated earlier this year. But on Tuesday this week Trump revived the idea by saying he would be willing to 'help [the Europeans] with things, especially, probably… by air.' The final picture, then, may be of a relatively small European and British ground force in Ukraine, backed by a more serious air and naval contribution, and ultimately US missiles and strike aircraft deployed nearby. On the ground So, what will the troops have to plan for? The nearest thing the Russian-Ukrainian war has seen to peacekeeping was an unarmed observer mission from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) deployed to monitor compliance with the Minsk ceasefire agreements from 2014 onwards. It was a frustrating business, admits Alexander Hug, the Swiss diplomat and lawyer who led the special monitoring mission (SMM) between 2014 and 2018. Russian-led 'separatists' in Donetsk and Luhansk were particularly brazen in simply refusing access to areas they did not want the monitors to see. But Ukrainians, too, had little trust for the mission. In 2017, a Ukrainian artillery commander gleefully showed me how he hid heavy weapons inside the zone that the Minsk deal said they should have been withdrawn from. His duty to protect infantry from Russian ceasefire violations outweighed the agreements of politicians, he reasoned. And because they knew that the OSCE was unarmed and had strict safety rules for its staff, both of the warring parties were able to control the mission's movements simply by increasing the level of risk. Stepping up shelling or mining of roads was an effective way to manipulate the observers without explicitly refusing to co-operate, says Hug. 'But the main problem was, and this should be a major lesson for anything that now comes to the fore when solutions are being discussed, there must be a mechanism through which violations will be processed,' he says. 'The only task the OSCE had was to document, but there was no mechanism through which identified violations would see any follow-up.' Even so, in the years during which the OSCE monitoring mission operated up to the 2022 full-scale invasion, violence in eastern Ukraine steadily declined, or was at least relatively contained. But it is impossible, admits Hug, to test whether that was a result of the SMM's presence. The tripwire The United Nations claims that two-thirds of completed peacekeeping missions have succeeded in preventing the outbreak of, or resumption of, a war – a figure backed by a 2005 RAND Corporation report. But the principle of peacekeeping – being a third, neutral force, accepted by both belligerents as an aid to keeping a peace that already exists – requires a basic, even if reluctant, commitment by both sides to ceasefire. Should one or another party be determined to continue fighting, UN Blue Helmets often struggle to stop them. Dutch peacekeepers were unable to prevent Srebrenica. Unifil, the long-running mission in southern Lebanon, is sometimes held up as a success, but could not stop Hezbollah rocket attacks, and was simply swept aside when Israel launched its most recent invasion last year. The 'reassurance force' being discussed is meant to avoid those pitfalls. But it still presents enormous risks. 'Then you're not talking about peacekeeping, you're talking about a tripwire. I did that when I was a very young soldier in Berlin in 1970 to 1972,' says Col Stewart. There was 'no way' the British and American forces in Berlin would have been able to stop a Soviet attack, he adds. The deterrent was that by killing them, the Russians would be declaring war on the West. Fundamentally, tripwire operations mean making troops 'a hostage to fortune', he says. That's why 15 years ago Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski was known to brief journalists that a single US missile battery on its territory would be enough to secure Poland's borders – not because of the missiles, but because it would be manned by American soldiers. And the killing of a single US soldier would engage America's entire might against whoever was behind it. 'You're adding to Russia's sense of risk,' explains Freedman, about the 'hostage' strategy. 'So it's not the same as saying 'You can be sure, if the Russians did something terrible again, that we would act'. What you're saying is 'We're creating a situation in which we are likely to act; we could act'. And that is something that Putin would have to take into account.' Avoiding the death spiral What is certain is that preventing inevitable confrontation from spiralling into conflict will require both a delicately crafted mandate, and highly motivated, trained and thoughtful soldiers. 'My instructions to my men in Bosnia were, if people are shooting at you, you have every right to shoot back, and you should if you're in danger. But just before you pull the trigger, think, is this going to make the situation more difficult or more dangerous than now,' says Col Stewart. 'That's why the soldiers have got to be well trained. They've also got to be trusted; trusted by the officers and the NCOs. I personally considered that every single one of my soldiers had the right to make a decision: he didn't have to turn around and ask his superior what to do. 'My worry is we now have got very limited men of that calibre, of the calibre to go in and be really thinking soldiers.' And it is not just the senior officers that troops have to be able to trust. In that Balkan field 26 years ago, after Gen Jackson had stood talking to Zavarzin for a while, the Russian general confided the difficulties he was having with authorities in Moscow: 'I am hacked off with politicians.' Gen Jackson, by then in possession of 'the inevitable glass of vodka', responded with: 'You too eh, Viktor?'
The National
an hour ago
- The National
We must support Ukrainians in their resistance against invasion
What is completely absent from Mark Brown's piece is any sense of agency of the people of Ukraine, who he presents as the helpless victims of big-power politics. As in all modern conflicts, big-power politics do indeed play a role in Ukraine – but to deny the Ukrainian people any voice, as he does, is simply to reproduce the discourse of imperialism. READ MORE: David Pratt: Diplomacy is welcome but we must listen to what Ukraine wants The alternative is to support the people of Ukraine in their quest for self-determination, and in their resistance against Russian invasion. This calls for practical solidarity with Ukrainian civil society, and for military support if requested by Ukraine. Nato's expansion after the demise of the Soviet Union is no reason to turn our backs on Ukraine's people now. We have been here before, many times. For example, while one of the causes of World War Two was the imperialist carve-up of the Versailles Treaty after World War One, this did not invalidate support for the anti-fascist resistance in Europe, including the supply of weapons from Britain to the resistance in France, Norway and Yugoslavia. Readers of The National will need no convincing that the people of Scotland have the right to self-determination. But that right does not stop at Gretna: it applies to all nations, not least to Palestine and to Ukraine. In Scotland many organisations, such as Ukraine Solidarity Campaign Scotland ( are building that grass-roots solidarity. Join them if you can. Paddy Farrington Edinburgh I HAVE been involved in campaigning for LGBTQ+ equality in Scotland for 38 years and counting, and I really must protest at the counter-factual nonsense in Jim Taylor's letter of August 21. Trans people have been part of the campaign since it started. As a public example, in 1988 I was one of the organisers of Scotland's first ever Pride-style event, the Lark in the Park festival in Princes Street Gardens, protesting the introduction of Section 28. It was compered throughout by the excellent Fay Presto, the UK's first openly trans professional magician. Mr Taylor could google the Compton's and Stonewall riots of the 1960s, or the work of Magnus Hirschfeld in the early 20th century, to see earlier examples. READ MORE: Duolingo apologises after German app calls JK Rowling 'cruel' Mr Taylor goes on to write that the Gender Recognition Reform Bill should have been subject to a manifesto offer. It was! It was proposed in the SNP's manifesto for the 2021 Holyrood election (on page 33), and also in the Labour one (page 98), the LibDems' (page 51), and the Green manifesto (page 81). Unsurprisingly, therefore, the bill was introduced a year after that election, and was passed by 86 votes to 39. That's democracy! Had it not been for the profoundly anti-democratic use of Section 35 by the Westminster Tories, we would now have a de-medicalised statutory declaration system for gender recognition like that of our neighbours in Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark and other countries. Needless to say, in none of those countries have the negative consequences predicted by the Tories and Mr Taylor come to pass. Tim Hopkins Edinburgh BRILLIANT letters in Thursday's edition by James Murphy and Jim Taylor in response to Ron Lumiere's. Jim Butchart via email RETURNING from holiday, I'm catching up on some articles I missed while away. After reading Kyle Renton's Long Letter on August 2 (It's Scots who should be telling stories about country's cultures and traditions), I read the Seven Days article of August 3 by Barbara Henderson about Andrew de Moray (The Invisible Man). In what was an informative article, there were a few word choices which made me think back to Kyle's letter: • John Balliol 'defied' Edward – surely as king of an independent country, John Balliol had to make the right decision for the people of Scotland, not necessarily to join England's wars? • The use of 'rebel' in relation to Andrew de Moray and William Wallace is also a strange choice. Rebelling against an invading force, or defending their homeland and fighting to preserve its independence? Having read Barbara's biography, she is certainly doing some wonderful work, but in this case, some more appropriate wording would have been more accurate. Steve Smart Newmachar, Aberdeenshire
Daily Mirror
2 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
'Time traveller' spotted in Trump and Putin photo with eerie similarity to 1959
US President Donald Trump shared two photos of meetings between American leaders and their counterparts from Russia and the Soviet Union, with many people noticing a striking similarity Eagle-eyed online sleuths have noted an odd detail involving an apparent "time traveller" in photos showing meetings between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin and between Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev. US President Trump met with despot Putin for the Alaska summit last week where he hoped to squeeze out conditions for a peace deal with the Russian President. During the meeting, where Putin issued steep demands for peace, the two leaders appeared cordial and, at times, friendly. One photo from the meeting, shared by the US President on TruthSocial, showed Trump pointing his finger squarely at a smirking Putin's chest while an interpreter seemingly guiding the conversation between the pair. The snap was accompanied by another photo of then-Vice President Nixon and Soviet Union leader Khrushchev, with a similar finger pointing incident during the so-called "Kitchen Debate" in Moscow, in 1959. While Trump appeared to highlight the similarities between his gesture and his Republican predecessor, as an apparent show of strength, eagle-eyed people online noted another similarity. At the centre of both images were interpreters who appeared strikingly similar. The unidentified men were noted for having physical similarities including their hair, face shape and their clothes, namely a shirt, suit and tie. X/ Twitter user Carole Tahan said: "A time traveller from the Nixon/Khroutchev encounter (1959) to the Trump/Putin Alaska summit (2025). The striking resemblance of the 2 interpreters!" Another commenter, going by the handle @polymath1959 added: "2025 upper panel - Trump vs Putin 1959 lower panel - Nixon vs Khruschev. Weird fun fact? Same interpreter in both, not aged a day!" Body language expert Judi James also noted the similarity, telling The Mirror: "They even seem to have booked a double of the guy who stood between the leaders back then, to stand in the same spot with the same look of concern on his face, suggesting this is serious stuff." The US pursued a strategy of containment against the Soviet Union, which resulted in Washington DC challenging the emergence of communism in multiple countries, including Vietnam, as well as assisting its enemies, such as in Afghanistan. But Trump has struck up a more positive tone with Putin that had not been seen since Russia illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine. Putin last enjoyed cordial relations with a Republican when George W. Bush was President. The pair met in 2001, with the former President commenting he looked into Putin's eyes and "found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy, and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul." Bush also said Putin "was a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country and I appreciate very much the frank dialogue and that's the beginning of a very constructive relationship." Trump has had a friendly relationship with Putin and has spoken warmly about him, even appearing to favour him in talks about ending the war in Ukraine.
