Another open letter on the war in Ukraine has caused outrage. In the appeal entitled “Armistice now!”, published in the weekly newspaper “Die Zeit” on Wednesday, well-known German personalities such as the philosopher Richard David Precht, writer Juli Zeh and science journalist Ranga Yogeshwar call for a “concerted push” for negotiations .
The political scientist and peace researcher Ursula Schröder sharply criticized the letter in an interview with “ntv”. “A key misconception in this letter is that warfare and negotiation are seen as alternatives. However, warfare is already part of a possible future negotiation process and not an alternative to it,” said Schröder.
“Of course it is desirable that this war ends as soon as possible,” said Schröder. That is one of the demands of the letter signers. “As a political signal to Russia, that would be fatal today. Because if it is said beforehand that the Western alliance does not want this war to be continued, and thus indirectly gives it to be understood that military support for Ukraine will be ended in the foreseeable future, Ukraine’s negotiating position deteriorates immensely,” explains Schröder in ” ntv” interview.
In the letter, the authors write that it cannot be assumed that Putin does not want to negotiate. Schröder has a clear opinion on this: “The authors of this letter approach this topic far too naively,” said the political scientist. “Negotiations can be conducted tactically, for example, to get more information about the opponent. Even the agreement on a temporary or spatially limited ceasefire is not automatically positive,” says Schröder “ntv”. Because: “In the Syrian war, Russia used ceasefires to reposition itself militarily and then to attack all the more intensely afterwards.”
For the peace expert, one thing is clear: “Negotiations on a ceasefire must be conducted very strategically. It must not be seen as an end in itself, as is the case in this letter.”
The previous pressure on Russia is not enough, says Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. Meanwhile, Kremlin boss Putin sees his war as planned – although experts suspect high losses. Below is an overview of what happened during the night and an outlook for the day.
Moscow wants to close the gaps in the Russian army in the war against Ukraine. General mobilization has not yet been announced, but there are signs that soldiers are already being recruited – and in different ways.
