Gregor Gysi is skeptical that Ukraine can completely repel Russia’s attack. In SPIEGEL’s top talk, he also calls for fewer sanctions against Moscow. SPD politician Michael Roth clearly disagrees.
Left-wing politician Gregor Gysi criticizes the fact that Western sanctions against Russia are also affecting the population there. “Surely it can’t be our goal that the Russian population is doing badly,” the foreign policy spokesman for the Bundestag’s left-wing parliamentary group said in a top-level SPIEGEL interview with moderator Markus Feldenkirchen and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael Roth (SPD).
The foreign policy spokesman for the left-wing parliamentary group in the Bundestag called for some areas to be exempted from the sanctions. “Certain machines I would continue to supply if they are important for a huge industrial company that otherwise has to lay off ten thousand people,” Gysi said. He warned that sanctions would result in “counter-responses” from Russia, such as in the energy sector.
Roth urges further sanctions
Roth, on the other hand, defended the existing measures and called for them to be expanded. “I am in favor of more sanctions, not fewer sanctions,” the SPD politician said.
He brought up tougher restrictions, especially for the Russian elite. “We have to completely cut off the water to these people who have become rich and powerful in Putin’s slipstream,” Roth said. He could not accept that oligarchs could continue to buy luxury apartments in London and Berlin, for example.
ysi does not believe in Ukrainian victory
Looking at the current course of the war, Gysi expressed skepticism that Ukraine could fully repel Russia’s attack. “It cannot win,” he said.
“Militarily, Russia cannot be beaten,” Gysi said, “then we would have to fight a nuclear war.” The strength of the Kremlin’s forces is underestimated, he said. “What can be done is to have a permanent war,” the left-wing politician said. In the process, he said, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin may find that he cannot win. “But I don’t want a war that lasts for years,” Gysi said.
