Zelenskiy to Germany: tear down wall dividing free, unfree Europe
STORY: Speaking to the Bundestag by videolink, Zelenskiy appealed to Scholz to restore freedom to Ukraine, tapping Germany's collective memory with reference to the historic 1948-1949 Berlin Airlift and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Zelenskiy described a new wall "in the middle of Europe between freedom and unfreedom", which he said Germany had helped build, isolating Ukraine with its business ties to Russia and its previous support for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
Germany last month halted the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea gas pipeline project, designed to double the flow of Russian gas directly to Germany. (Full Story)
Recalling former U.S. president Ronald Reagan's appeal to Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, to tear down the Berlin Wall, Zelenskiy told German lawmakers: "That's what I say to you dear Chancellor Scholz: destroy this wall."
Lawmakers in the Bundestag welcomed Zelenskiy with a standing ovation and the chamber's vice president, Katrin Goering-Eckardt, told him: "Your country has chosen democracy, and that's what (Russian President) Vladimir Putin fears."
She said Putin was trying to deny Ukraine's right to exist, adding: "But he has already failed with that."
