Dismissed Ukrainian Ambassador Accuses Germany of Insufficient Military Aid

BERLIN (Sputnik) - Ukrainian diplomat Andrij Melnyk, who was dismissed from the post of ambassador in Berlin last month, stated on Sunday that German authorities appear "on a diet" in terms of the volume of military aid to Kiev.

"Dear traffic light government [the Social Democratic Party, Free Democratic Party, and the Greens], why are the calls of your own defense politicians, demanding to supply Ukraine with much more German heavy weapons, being ignored? Why is Kiev being rejected militarily? On a diet," Melnyk said in a tweet.

Earlier this week, German newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported, citing sources in the Ukrainian government, that since June Ukrainian diplomats had repeatedly asked the German government to provide additional weapons but so far without success. The German defense ministry reportedly justified its refusal to provide heavy military assistance, in particular, by the fact that the German armed forces need weapons to fulfill allied obligations in NATO.

Earlier in the day, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Berlin has been regularly supplying Kiev with "very effective" weapons and vowed to continue the deliveries, but stressed that there should be no escalation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed Melnyk in July shortly after the diplomat made scandal glorifying Ukrainian nationalist leader and Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera in an interview with German media. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry then issued a statement saying that Melnyk's opinion expressed in the interview is his own and does not reflect the country's official position.