Chancellor Olaf Scholtz’s foreign affairs adviser, diplomat Jens Plötner, stated that debates over Germany’s support for Ukraine are “driven by a feverishness that often overlooks the most important points”.

He lamented that this issue is approached with a bias and that there are no substantive debates when it comes to Russia and China. On Ukraine’s accession to the EU, he underlined that it is not because Ukraine has been attacked that it should benefit from a “discount” and be dispensed from the democratic and institutional requirements of the Union.

In the past, Jens Plötner had cooled down German governments over their enthusiasm for the Muslim Brotherhood and their condemnation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. His latest statements rankled Germans in the Atlanticist camp.