Oh, Angela, why are you not Margaret?

President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko’s March 16 visit to Berlin and his talks with Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel have demonstrated that the “Iron Frau” lacks Margaret Thatcher’s determination, which saw the latter taking a principled stand, in particular regarding the evil empire of the Soviet Union. Lilia Shevtsova covered the matter in The Day back in September 2013. At her March 16 press conference, Merkel, on the one hand, stressed that Ukraine needed to comply with the Minsk Accords, while on the other, declared that the EU stood ready to strengthen its sanctions in case of the militants violating the ceasefire in the Donbas. However, we see the pro-Russian militants violating this regime all the time while Russia supplies them with weapons and sends militants to the Donbas as well as keeps over 10,000 Russian soldiers there. The West, meanwhile, has not responded to this, and it is known that a number of Putin-friendly nations oppose tougher sanctions. Thus, Merkel’s statement is unlikely to be worth much.

 The Ukrainian president’s stance is surprising as well, in view of his constant statements that Ukraine will comply with the Minsk Accords and sees them as the only solution to the crisis in the Donbas. Poroshenko tweeted: “The global problem is that the security architecture that was formed after World War II has stopped working! We have to build a new security architecture.” We know nothing about Merkel’s response to this.