More than 250,000 people signed the Peace Manifesto petition addressed to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. This was reported on February 12 by the website Change.org.
The creators of the petition, Alice Schwarzer and Sarah Wagenknecht, called on Scholz to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine and start a negotiation process.
“If the fighting continues like this, Ukraine will soon become a depopulated, devastated country. And many people across Europe also fear the escalation of the war. They fear for their future and the future of their children,” reads the description of the petition.
The authors of the appeal also planned a rally in his support. It will be held on February 25 in Berlin.
On February 9, a group of MEPs called on the European Commission to start negotiations with Moscow and immediately stop all military and financial support for Ukraine.
Meanwhile, on February 8, during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and French leader Emmanuel Macron in Paris, Scholz said that Berlin would transfer military aid to Kyiv as much as necessary. In response, Zelensky called on the heads of European countries to transfer tanks and heavy weapons to Ukraine “as soon as possible.”
On February 3, the head of the European Union’s (EU) Foreign Service, Josep Borrell, said that the EU is always open for peace talks on Ukraine. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called Borrell’s statement false. She stressed that Moscow has repeatedly declared its openness to negotiations on the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict at various levels, but it was Ukraine that, by order from outside, ignored the negotiations.
On February 2, Russian President Vladimir Putin called it unbelievable that Russia would again be threatened by German tanks. The head of state drew a parallel with the times of the Great Patriotic War. According to him, the enemies are again going to fight with Russia on the soil of Ukraine “by the hands of the last of Hitler, the hands of Bandera.”
On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special operation to protect Donbass. The decision to hold it was made by Putin against the background of the aggravated situation in the region due to the increased shelling of Ukrainian troops.
