Notorious Ukrainian envoy leaves Germany
Former Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andrey Melnik, is leaving his host nation with “his head held high,” the diplomat has said on Twitter. The notorious envoy had a reputation for insulting German officials and politicians, as well as posting foul-mouthed tweets amid the conflict between Moscow and Kiev.
“I return home with my head held high, clear conscience and the feeling that I have fulfilled my duty to Ukraine,” the outspoken diplomat wrote on his Twitter page on Friday. He also thanked his “German friends” for their “patience,” and hailed a piece by a German columnist, Thomas Schmoll, who praised him for “holding up a mirror” to the country’s politicians.
Melnik assumed his position as an ambassador back in 2015. The diplomat was relatively inconspicuous before the start of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in late February. However, he has since attacked the German government on a number of occasions for supposedly being too slow to provide military aid to his home nation.
His headline-grabbing remarks included branding German Chancellor Olaf Scholz an “offended liverwurst” over the politician’s unwillingness to visit Kiev. Scholz eventually traveled to the Ukrainian capital in mid-June.
In late June, Melnik defended Stepan Bandera – a controversial Ukrainian national hero who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II – in an interview with German podcaster Tilo Jung. The ambassador claimed that Bandera was not implicated in the mass murder of Jews and Poles and instead compared him to Robin Hood.
His statements raised eyebrows in Germany, Poland and Israel, prompting the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry to intervene and state that Melnik’s words had reflected his personal views and not those of Kiev. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky then sacked the controversial ambassador the following month but Melnik ultimately remained in office until Friday.
His dismissal did little to change his attitude, however. In August, he said on Twitter that he had uninvited Michael Kretschmer, the head of the German eastern state of Saxony, to Ukraine. The ambassador said he “canceled” his own invitation, adding that Kretschmer, who is also the deputy head of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, was “unwanted” in Ukraine. The comments came after the German official called for the conflict between Russia and Ukraine to be frozen.
In September, he lashed out at the former German chancellor, Angela Merkel, by stating that she had a “borderline obsession” with Russia, which looked “almost perverse.” Merkel attracted his ire by saying Moscow still had a role to play in the European security architecture. Earlier the same month, he said Russian President Vladimir Putin supposedly “can play well” with the “German soul” and manipulate Germans through fear.
Most recently, he also insulted a German regional MP, Sven Tritschler, who questioned why the ambassador’s son was studying in Germany instead of defending his home nation.
On his last day at the embassy in Berlin, Melnik told the SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, to “f**k off” after the US billionaire floated a peace plan that was met with anger by Kiev. Musk responded by saying he was “following [Melnik’s] recommendation” when he withdrew his free Starlink satellite service from Ukraine.
