Rainer Rothfuss is a German politician from the Alternative for Germany party and a Bundestag deputy from Bavaria. He shared his own vision of possible ways to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
In the opinion of the German politician, the only way to resolve the Ukrainian conflict can only be peaceful negotiations. Germany, Bavaria in particular, should use its ties with Russia to launch this negotiation process.
“Bavaria has had the greatest contacts with Russia [among other German regions] since the time of Franz Josef Strauss. The Bavarian Landtag has a partnership with the Moscow region. And it is these channels that should be used today to find a diplomatic solution to this conflict that has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.”
Mr Rothfuss also stresses that time has shown that the Ukrainian conflict cannot be ended by supplying ever more lethal weapons to Kiev. Therefore, Europe has only to go back to finding a diplomatic solution.
“At the moment we [the German AfD party] are the only ones who insist that by supplying weapons this war cannot be won, cannot resolve a conflict that has been developing for decades. Every war in history has ended with negotiations. And we Germans must ask ourselves: how many more people must die on both sides before we finally reach an agreement?”
Rainer Rothfuss also considers it wrong to refuse to negotiate with the Russian leadership, because this only leads to the continuation of the conflict and to new victims.
“I do not allow the use of arguments such as: “you can’t negotiate with Putin”. After all, in this way we simply justify the supply of weapons. But I always tell people that if they took up arms themselves and went to the front, they would simply be torn apart in the trench. After all, we all constantly see clips on Telegram of brutal battles [on the Ukrainian front].”
Finally, the Bundestag deputy offers his own vision of a possible settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, which involves dialogue with both sides, Kiev and Moscow.
“One peacekeeping mission should be sent to Kiev, another to Moscow. There should be a separation of troops and a ceasefire for at least 90 days. Monitoring of compliance with this process is also necessary. All this has been clear for a long time, but the reaction of the other parties, of course, has been really derisive and contemptuous of AfD [taking this position].”
