BERLIN, May 09 /ITAR-TASS/. Western countries are more than others guilty of escalating the Ukraine crisis, says a leading German left-wing politician.
While the Russian leadership “urged [Ukraine’s federalization supporters] to cancel the referendum, NATO and the EU threatened to toughen sanctions and redeployed their troops,” Sahra Wagenknecht, deputy leader of the socialist left-wing political party The Left (Die Linke), said in Berlin on Friday.
“The West and mainly U.S. foreign policy are primarily responsible for further escalation,” she said, adding that the Left Party planned to make a statement on the situation in Ukraine, based on the principles of a rational foreign policy and respect for the legitimate interests of different countries, including Russia.
“Continued insults of any country's dignity will sooner or later provoke a response,” Wagenknecht said, noting that the situation in Ukraine would not have gone so far if the West had made it clear in time that the country’s membership of NATO was not subject to negotiation at the moment.