BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – The Ukrainian top diplomat Oleksiy Makejev will replace Andriy Melnyk as ambassador in Berlin in a few weeks. The Federal Foreign Office announced on Saturday that Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier had given his approval for the nomination of the government’s current sanctions commissioner in Kyiv for the post. The “Welt am Sonntag” reported first. Melnyk will leave Berlin on October 14 to take up a new post at the foreign ministry in the Ukrainian capital – he will probably become one of several deputy foreign ministers.
Shortly thereafter, the diplomat Makejev, born in 1975, is expected in Berlin. Like Melnyk, he speaks German as well as Spanish, French and English very well and has previously worked at the embassy in Berlin. In 2014, then Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin made him his political director, and in 2020 he was appointed special envoy for sanctions against Russia. In this capacity, he also speaks out publicly in interviews or on Twitter and is currently calling for an entry ban for Russian tourists.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed current ambassador Melnyk from his post in mid-July. Melnyk had not only made a name for himself with often harsh criticism of the federal government since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
In a recent dpa interview, Melnyk recommended a dual strategy to his successor. “He would have to be accepted as a diplomat as soon as possible, i.e. be nice and friendly, in order to win new sympathy for Ukraine, especially in view of the war weariness and this exaggerated debate about a cold winter,” said the ambassador. “On the other hand, I think he can’t help but be uncomfortable and edgy and keep challenging the sluggish German political elite.” It will be “a Herculean task for him to find his way through the Berlin political jungle without any grace period”./mfi/DP/zb