SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich has accused the Ukrainian government of having put him on a “terrorist list” a long time ago. “I was already irritated that the Ukrainian government put me on a terrorist list on the grounds that I am working for a ceasefire or for the possibility of taking further diplomatic steps via local ceasefires,” said Mützenich on Saturday at the SPD debate convention in Berlin.
That’s why he also received threats: “On the basis that the Ukrainian government’s terrorist list was put on, you also received secondary threats, so to speak. Not exactly easy to deal with either.”
Former Ukrainian ambassador Andriy Melnyk denied the accusation on Twitter. “There is no ‘terror list’ from the Ukrainian government. Stop presenting yourself as an ‘innocent victim’.” The Ukrainian foreign ministry denied this in the evening: “The Ukrainian government does not keep a terror list,” wrote Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko on Facebook. “And as far as I know, there are no proceedings against Rolf Mützenich in the Ukraine either.” All of the German politician’s claims about his alleged persecution by Ukrainian authorities are “untrue”.
According to media reports, the “Center against Disinformation of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine” had already published a list of 70 personalities on the Internet in July, which also included Mützenich. The accusation: the dissemination of “narratives” that matched Russian propaganda. Mützenich was listed as saying that he was working for a ceasefire. The page can no longer be accessed.
Mützenich said that if commitment to a ceasefire is a criterion for such a list, then UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres must also be counted on it. He lamented “discrimination” against those who, like himself, advocate diplomacy with a view to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
He also accused the SPD’s coalition partners, i.e. the Greens and the FDP, of this discrimination. “That goes to some extent to the coalition partners. I oppose this rigorism.” Mützenich vehemently defended his demand for more diplomacy: “It remains the case: (…) Most wars did not end on the battlefield.”
