Viola von Cramon made the remark in an interview with Germany’s Focus magazine, Poland’s tysol.pl website reported.
She also stated that if Germany “had listened earlier” to people in Eastern Europe, “we could have saved many lives in Ukraine,” according to tysol.pl.
Von Cramon said, as quoted by tysol.pl: “Due to Germany’s Russia policy in the past, we are in a crisis in Europe at the moment, which is partly due to the bought elites in German politics.”
The German MEP, who represents her country's Green Party and is involved in efforts to help war-torn Ukraine, added that “to date, Russia’s real aims had never been noticed,” because “a bought section of the elites had made confrontation impossible,” tysol.pl reported.
'No doubt' Germany should approve delivery of Leopard tanks to Ukraine
The Greens have been calling on the German government to extend firm support to Ukraine amid the Russian invasion, according to the Polish website.
Asked whether Berlin should approve the transfer of German-made Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Kyiv, von Cramon replied, as quoted by tysol.pl: "The answer should be yes, there’s no doubt about that."
Photo: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung from Berlin, Deutschland, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
'If we had listened to the Eastern Europeans...'
Von Cramon added: “Some in the German government still seem fairly insensitive to the perspective of our Eastern European partners,” tysol.pl reported.
She stated, as quoted by tysol.pl: "If we had listened to the Eastern Europeans earlier, we could have saved many lives in Ukraine."
Tuesday is day 328 of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: tysol.pl, focus.de