In view of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, Left Party leader Janine Wissler is maintaining her party’s call for NATO to be dissolved. “Our criticism of NATO is not obsolete because Russia is waging a war that violates international law,” Wissler told the newspapers of the Funke media group. “We want to replace NATO with a collective security system. That still applies. Stable international security can only be guaranteed when all important states are integrated into a common security system.”
Wissler countered the interviewer’s objection that without NATO, Russian troops could already be in the Baltic States. “My impression is not that Putin is about to attack the Baltic States. His army has totally worn itself out in Ukraine.”
NATO is “anything but a guarantor of security and stability in this world,” Wissler criticized. She accused the alliance of having waged wars that violate international law itself – “in Afghanistan or in the Balkans”. And the eastward expansion of NATO is part of “the prehistory of the Ukraine war.” When asked whether she blamed NATO for the Ukraine war, the Left Chairwoman denied. “I think NATO’s eastward expansion was a mistake. But it’s no justification for invading Ukraine and bombing cities.”
Wissler called for a special program to take in Russian deserters in Germany. “I call on Russian soldiers to refuse service with arms,” she said. “We are committed to ensuring that Russian deserters are accepted in Germany – in a special program beyond the asylum procedure.” That would “hit the Russian army hard,” argued the left leader.
