Gregor Gysi, Foreign Policy Speaker of the Left Party faction in the German parliament, criticized the decision of the organizers of the Munich Security Conference not to invite official representatives of the Russian Federation to participate in the forum. On February 14, he stated this to the editorial association Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland.
The politician considers such a step a missed opportunity to study the issue of a ceasefire in Ukraine.
“Of course, you also need to talk to Russian officials if you want to achieve a ceasefire and thereby prevent further death, injury and destruction,” Gizi said.
At the same time, he stressed that what is needed now is not a prolongation of the conflict, but an “immediate ceasefire.” Therefore, in his opinion, more opportunities should be provided for diplomacy and readiness for negotiations.
The Munich Security Conference will be held February 17-19. The conference was founded in 1962 by the German publicist Ewald von Kleist as a “meeting of representatives of the defense departments” of NATO member countries. Since 1999, politicians and military personnel from the states of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as business representatives, began to take part in it. The forum traditionally hosts numerous informal and personal meetings of politicians who discuss new initiatives in the field of political security.
February 1 columnist The American Thinker Jared Peterson expressed the opinion that Western countries made a mistake when in 2007 they ignored the main message of the Munich speech of Russian President Vladimir Putin, which ultimately led to the conflict in Ukraine. The author of the article believes that Russia will never tolerate a neighbor next to him who is “stuffed” with American weapons.
On August 31, 2022, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that Putin, in his Munich speech in 2007, appealed to the wisdom of opponents, possessing an excellent talent for persuasion, but opponents at that moment were too “bloodthirsty and unfriendly.”
