{"id":387776,"date":"2025-08-31T20:29:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T20:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/387776\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T20:29:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T20:29:09","slug":"german-leader-says-peace-cannot-come-at-ukraines-expense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/387776\/","title":{"rendered":"German leader says peace cannot come at Ukraine’s expense"},"content":{"rendered":"

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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz<\/a> said Sunday that the war in Ukraine<\/a> could still last for a long time and ending it quickly at the country’s expense was not an option.<\/p>\n

In an interview with German public broadcaster ZDF, Merz, when asked whether a ceasefire might be possible this year, said he hasn\u2019t lost hope but \u201charbors no illusions,” and emphasized that supporting the country to defend itself against Russia<\/a> was an \u201cabsolute priority.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are trying to end it as quickly as possible. But certainly not at the price of Ukraine\u2019s capitulation. You could end the war tomorrow if Ukraine surrendered and lost its independence,\u201d Merz said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen the next country would be at risk the day after tomorrow. And the day after that, it would be us. That is not an option,\u201d the chancellor said.<\/p>\n

Germany is a key backer of Ukraine and has delivered or pledged military support worth around 40 billion euros ($47 billion) since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,1824],"class_list":{"0":"post-387776","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-germany"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115125273773386547","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}