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By PTI
NEW DELHI: The ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine, if goes unchecked, could result in devastating consequences for the world, visiting German National Security Adviser Jens Plotner said Wednesday.
Plotner also said that Germany understands New Delhi’s constraints and challenges as it lives in a “challenging neighbourhood” and that there was no need for Europe to “preach or teach” the country over its position on the Ukraine crisis.
The German official made the comments at an interaction with the media hours before he held talks with NSA Ajit Doval, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla.
Listing steps taken by Germany in cutting back on Russian energy supplies, Plotner said Germany hopes that other countries will not “neutralise” the burdens that we are putting on ourselves.
Referring to Western sanctions against Moscow, he said Germany hopes that no friendly country in the world takes any step of actually taking “economic advantage” of the war.
“As you see, we are steadily decreasing and not increasing what we are buying from Russia in this crisis. So this would be a suggestion we will make to our friends that it might not be the time to actually do exactly the contrary to what we all are doing,” he said.
Asked whether Germany would like India to not buy any discounted crude oil from Russia, Plotner said he was not in New Delhi to lecture or demand something from the country.
He said that Berlin understand that India is in a challenging neighbourhood and there was no need for Europe to “preach or teach” the country.
“You (India) live in a complicated neighbourhood, you have challenges of constraints of your own. One of the aims of my discussion today is to better understand how this geopolitical specificity of India plays into your analysis of what is going on in Ukraine,” he said.
“I started this day being quite confident that although we might have different approaches, we will still come to the common conclusion that this cannot go unchecked, because the consequences if this go unchecked, I think will be really devastating for all of us,” he said.
Plotner said the aim of his visit is to learn more about the views of India on the conflict and to share Germany’s perspective.
“It is an obvious (and) blatant breach of all international norms. It is obviously totally unprovoked and it is an open-ended question how all this will end,” he said.
“From our point of view, it is first and foremost about Ukraine, which in no way provoked this attack.
And if this goes unchecked, what will be the consequence beyond the borders of Ukraine,” he said.
“Because one of the reasonings of President (Vladimir) Putin is that historically, Ukraine belonged to the Soviet Union and the Russian empire,” he added.
“But if we start looking back at history books and then choosing the geography we find that’s suitable for our country, then I think we are really in for a period of quite some turmoil internationally if every country decides that it wants to turn back the clock in time,” he said.
Plotner said what is happening in Ukraine must send alarm bells ringing through all capitals of countries that believe in the international rule of law and international order.
“That is why I think beyond the case of Ukraine, this is so important. And this is why I think beyond Europe what is happening in Ukraine must send alarm bells ringing through all capitals of countries that believe in the international rule law and international order,” he said.
“There we feel very close to India, we cooperate closely in many UN matters, we have the “same genes” on states living together and interacting,” he said.
Plotner said Germany’s efforts will be to explore ways to stop the war.
“Consequences of this war, how can we best stop this war, what lessons we need to learn that this can’t happen again. What lessons do we want other countries, big and small, to draw from this war,” the German official said.
“We don’t want the big ones to be encouraged because something like this goes unchecked and we don’t want smaller countries to feel that they need to live in fear because any big one can just decide to turn back time on history and geography and decide that this country has no right to exist as such,” he said.
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