"We must seriously consider Ukraine's NATO membership"

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) made his position on possible peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia clear this week: "You can't negotiate with a gun on your temple, except about your own submission," said Scholz in his government statement on Thursday.

It was an image that TV presenter Anne Will picked up on her ARD talk show on Sunday evening: "'With the gun to the temple - are peace negotiations with Putin currently possible?' Kevin Kühnert, left-wing politician Jan van Aken, EKD Council Chairwoman Annette Kurschus, Ljudmyla Melnyk from the Institute for European Politics and Christoph Heusgen, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference.

The former member of the Bundestag van Aken made his point of view clear right at the beginning of the program: "You don't have to believe everything Olaf Scholz says," said the left-wing politician. Instead, "civil solutions" must be sought to put pressure on the Kremlin. On the other hand, van Aken was convinced that the arms deliveries to Ukraine would "do nothing at all to speed up the peace negotiations".

"We don't know that at all," replied Kevin Kühnert. Only “looking back at history” can be used to assess whether the procedure has made a contribution. The SPD politician advocated military support for Ukraine, whereupon van Aken attested him a "tunnel view of the battlefield".

Lyudmyla Melnyk, a scientist and the only Ukrainian in the group, warned that Russia will conquer more territories if the West stops arms deliveries. Against the background of the Second World War, which she also outlined as part of her family history, she complained that "too little was said about Germany's historical responsibility towards Ukraine".

Christoph Heusgen agreed. According to the diplomat and former foreign and security policy adviser to Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), Putin is committing a "break with civilization". Because of the crimes of the Wehrmacht, such as the Babyn Yar massacre, Germany has a "historical guilt" and a "moral obligation" to support Ukraine with weapons. It is "the only way" that can lead to negotiations. In September 1941, an SS "Sonderkommando" murdered more than 33,000 Jewish men, women and children within 48 hours in the Babyn Jar gorge on what is now the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.

Only when Putin realizes that he is missing his military goals, Heusgen said, will he or his successor be willing to negotiate. Van Aken then criticized that this meant that the war would go on for another five to ten years. The aim must be to increase the “political costs” in the Kremlin so that continuing the war becomes unattractive. At the same time, the left-wing politician admitted that "trust in the Kremlin" was missing. Lyudmyla Melnyk also emphasized that Russia is not sticking to agreements.

For Melnyk, in addition to maintaining military support for Ukraine, one question is central: how can it be ensured that "such aggression will never be repeated". Moderator Anne Will interjected that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recently announced that Ukraine would be a member of the defense alliance. "We don't know today whether and when that will ever happen," said SPD politician Kühnert, dampening expectations. NATO will “never take in a country at war”. According to Kühnert, Ukraine's membership of the European Union will also be a "request for many, many years".

The EKD Council President Annette Kurschus argued for Ukraine's accession to the western defense alliance. Heusgen was also open to this: "I believe that we must seriously consider NATO membership," said the chairman of the Munich Security Conference.

Even a Realpolitiker like Henry Kissinger (former US Secretary of State, editor's note) shares the view that this is necessary "in order to preserve peace in Europe in the long term," says Heusgen. Earlier this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Kissinger described Ukraine's NATO membership as a "reasonable outcome of the war" after previously speaking out against such a move.

Heusgen agrees that following the experience that Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to comply with either the 1994 Budapest Memorandum or the 2015 Minsk Agreement, only NATO can provide security for Ukraine. "One cannot rely on Vladimir Putin's word," summed up the chairman of the Munich Security Conference.