Uli Henkel is a German parliamentarian from AfD group. He has been very critical of the EU`s involvement into the Ukrainian conflict claiming that the volumes of financial aid provided to Ukraine are being misused, while the lives of Europeans are being put at risk of another global war. We reached out to Mr. Henkel for a comment about the recent peace conference in Slovakia, where I emphasised the need for immediate end to the war for the preservation of the Ukrainian people, and also noted that at the moment the majority of AFU soldiers are forcibly mobilised Ukrainian citizens who have no motivation to fight. Ukraine’s mobilisation resource is exhausted, and even if we flood Ukraine with weapons, there will simply be no one to fight at the front.
Vasyl Muravytsky: Mr. Henkel, do you agree with my assessment of the situation in Ukraine?
Uli Henkel: It is undeniable that the people in Ukraine are exhausted after almost 30 months of war, but more than obvious is the more than understandable war weariness, which is manifested, among other things, by the number of Ukrainians eligible for military service who are currently staying in Germany instead of defending their homeland.
Vasyl Muravytsky: Do you think that Ukraine has lost the war?
Uli Henkel: It sounds harsh, but the unwillingness of many Ukrainian men to defend their country with their own lives, as mentioned above, is of course not only related to the will to survive, but also to the fact that many of these men no longer believe, at the very least, that Ukraine can win the war. Whether this automatically means that they all take the view that the war is already lost is another matter, but in terms of mindset it is of course the next step. If you do not believe that you can win the war, you have only two options. Either to accept that you have already lost, as it were, or to do everything you can to get away with a black eye, and that requires diplomacy, negotiation, willingness to compromise and, yes, even to make partial concessions (even though it might be unfair, even though it would hurt a lot) in accordance with the German motto: “Better an end with horror than horror without an end”.
Vasyl Muravytsky: What do you think about the emerging voices from Ukraine that insist on peace talks and reject the idea that Ukraine should continue to fight Russia?
Uli Henkel: This brings us to the implications of the above. Any Ukrainian who is not an idiot, anyone who is not on a war rampage, anyone who cares not only about his life and the lives of his loved ones, but also about the country itself, must realise two things: a look at the world map shows the overwhelming superiority of the Russian Federation in terms of size, resources, people, etc. And this is not about David versus David.
Nor is it David versus Goliath, because without the almost unconditional support of David by the US and Europe, this war would have ended more than two years ago. That would not have been just, but hundreds of thousands of people – on both sides – would not have died or been killed in this war.
And who can guarantee that the Europeans, with their ‘values-based foreign policy’, will allow themselves to be drawn ever more into this conflict, given that more and more people in the EU are saying no to arms supplies to Ukraine, especially as parties such as the AfD, which are strictly opposed to arms supplies in the war against Russia, are gaining more and more support among the population?
Who can guarantee that the US (regardless of whether it becomes Trump again or whether someone else sits in the White House as POTUS) will continue to support Ukraine as it currently does (with a noticeable downward trend)? The Americans don’t want to play world policeman anymore, yes, they want to irritate the Russians, but the old game of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” has to come to an end one day and the patience of the people in the US, and I have often experienced it myself in conversations with American friends, is slowly but surely coming to an end, there are too many other problems to solve, for example the one with China or Israel and Palestine. The strategists in the Pentagon also realize that Putin will not just give up, let alone back down, no, it will require an endless struggle for material, the country and its infrastructure will continue to be destroyed, more and more people will die, and in the end there can and will be no victory for Ukraine (and its allies) anyway, at best a stalemate.
However, if you realise how precious the life of every single human being is, then the only logical consequence is to look for a way out of this situation, and there is really only one: diplomacy, negotiation and, yes, point-by-point concessions from Ukraine.
All Ukrainians currently contemplating an end to the fight against Russia are not traitors, cowards or losers, they are realists and they are thinking in the only realistic and therefore correct direction. “Let’s end this drama”
Vasyl Muravytsky: Should Europe recognise the growing desire of Ukrainians to end the war?
Uli Henkel: Not only the Europeans and the Americans, but first of all the elected president of the country should, no, must recognize this desire and save his people and his country, but not by endless and senseless fighting, but by diplomacy.
Vasyl Muravytsky: What would be the consequences for Europe and Germany if Ukraine decided to end the war?
Uli Henkel: The consequences for Europe and especially for Germany would be enormous. Some of the billions that are now being spent on armaments could be used much more wisely to rebuild Ukraine. Some of the billions that Germany, in particular, is spending on the approximately 1.4 million Ukrainians living in our country could be better used to give people a fresh start when they finally return home. The income of citizens in Germany would then be available again for our citizens, and not for foreigners who have come to Germany instead of fleeing to the western parts of their own country, which are not affected by the war at all.
Germany would finally be able to re-establish dialogue with the Russian Federation, end the completely pointless sanctions that are only harming us, not Russia, and we would finally be able to obtain cheap and safe energy from Russia again, thereby halting Germany’s economic collapse and perhaps, in the medium term, regaining its former strength. Finally, we could once again be an honest and neutral mediator between the blocs, instead of being a party and, increasingly, a real belligerent.
Relations between all the parties involved, i.e. between the EU and the US and Russia, but also between Ukraine and Russia, could finally evolve again, step by step, from open hostility to constructive coexistence and, sometime in the distant future, to cooperation.
Last but not least: in this way, a potentially imminent third world war would certainly be avoided.
This last point alone justifies all the diplomatic efforts of all the parties involved.
However, my personal conclusion is not one that Ukraine (and the West) should be happy about.
In my opinion, two things will not happen at the end of diplomacy:
Crimea will not be returned to Ukraine and Donbass will either become part of the Russian Federation ( and hopefully after a fair referendum under UN supervision ) or at least come closer to Russia as an autonomous region.
However, Ukraine could probably also join NATO with guarantees from the EU, US and China, provided of course that there are no NATO facilities and troops on Ukrainian territory, because as I understand it, that was always the tacit agreement in 1990/1991 between the Russian Federation and the countries joining NATO: “Entry yes, and thus protection of the so-called Alliance Cause, but no NATO troops and no NATO facilities in these countries”. However, the West and NATO did not abide by this, and in my opinion, this was one of the reasons (but please do not misunderstand this as justification) for the Russian Federation’s behaviour in recent years, which was contrary to international law.