SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich has accused the Ukrainian government of putting him on a "terror list" - and thus causing irritation in Kyiv. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry rejected the accusation at the weekend. "The Ukrainian government does not keep a terror list," Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko wrote on Facebook. "And as far as I know, there are no proceedings against Rolf Mützenich in the Ukraine either." All of the German politician's claims about his alleged persecution by Ukrainian authorities are "untrue".
At the SPD debate convention in Berlin on Saturday, Mützenich spoke of a Ukrainian "terrorist list". "I was irritated that the Ukrainian government put me on a terrorist list on the grounds that I was working for a ceasefire or for the possibility of taking further diplomatic steps via local ceasefires," he said. "On the basis that the Ukrainian government's terror list came up, you also received secondary threats, so to speak." It's not easy to deal with.
List no longer available
Mützenich referred to a list that the "Center against Disinformation of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine" published on the Internet in July, but which has not been available for several months. Among the more than 70 personalities who were on this list were the right-wing French politician Marine Le Pen, the publicist Alice Schwarzer and others, and Mützenich. The accusation: the dissemination of "narratives" that correspond to Russian propaganda. Mützenich was listed as saying that he was committed to a ceasefire.
The chairman of the SPD parliamentary group said at the debate convention that if the commitment to a ceasefire is a criterion for such a list, then UN Secretary General António Guterres must also be counted on it. He lamented "discrimination" against those who, like himself, advocate diplomacy with a view to Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.
Melnyk rejected allegations
On Sunday, Mützenich reiterated his criticism of the Ukrainian authorities without repeating the term "terrorist list". He was irritated that, by being mentioned on the list, he was accused of "accompanying the terror and suffering that Russia is inflicting on the Ukrainian population with its war of aggression with Russian propaganda, especially since the accusation was that I was standing up for one armistice," he told the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" (Monday). However, that does not stop him from continuing to provide comprehensive support to Ukraine and at the same time to support more international diplomatic initiatives.
The former Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, had already dismissed Mützenich's accusation against the authority on Twitter before the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. "There is no 'terror list' from the Ukrainian government. Stop presenting yourself as an 'innocent victim'," he wrote.
The SPD foreign politician Ralf Stegner defended Mützenich. "I find it increasingly disturbing when today peace politicians are insulted and the militarization of thinking and action becomes obvious," he wrote on Twitter,
