LONDON (Bywire News) - Polish President Andrzej Duda has criticised French and German leaders for phone calls with Vladimir Putin, likening their actions to talking with Adolf Hitler.
French President, Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, have both conducted phone calls with Putin in an attempt to preserve diplomatic relations.
Macron, specifically, drove these calls in an attempt to ensure Russia does not feel humiliated. However, in an interview with a German Tabloid Bild, Polish President Duda said: "Did anyone speak like this with Adolf Hitler during World War Two?
"Did anyone say that Adolf Hitler must save face? That we should proceed in such a way that it is not humiliating for Adolf Hitler? I have not heard such voices."
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has demolished cities, slaughtered countless civilians, and forced more than seven million people to flee the country, in what has been described by Western allies as an unprovoked war over territory.
On May 28th, Scholz and Macron urged Putin to release the 2,500 Ukrainian troops that had been seized in Mariupol. They also tried to encourage him to speak to Ukrainian President Zelensky directly.
Other European nations such as Italy and Hungary have also adopted an even-tempered approach with Russia by encouraging peace talks and have urged a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Zelensky, like Duda, though, has compared Russia to Nazi Germany and Putin to Hitler. The Ukrainian President has dismissed Western suggestions that Ukraine could give up its territory, reminding leaders that such ideas were also suggested in 1939 in an attempt to mollify Nazi Germany. It didn’t work then and it’s not likely to work now.
(Writing by Anna Kapanadze, editing by Tom Cropper and Klaudia Fior)