During a visit to Kyiv, the leader of Germany's opposition CDU, Friedrich Merz, expressed shock at the destruction of Ukraine during Russia's war and accused Moscow of crimes, reports Deutsche Welle.
"I was and remain absolutely shocked. These pictures do not leave my head," Merz said after a conversation with Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko.
Mertz said that in Irpin he saw that heavy weapons destroyed cultural centers, kindergartens and hospitals, and that the war was being waged against the civilian population.
"You can't just watch this on TV, you have to see it with your own eyes to realize the tragedy of such attacks," said the leader of the German opposition. According to him, Germany should help Ukraine rebuild Irpin.
Merz also stated that he supports supplying weapons to Kyiv and granting Ukraine candidate status for membership in the European Union.
Mertz did not want to speak publicly about the content of his hour-long conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy before informing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, is a party that longtime German Chancellor Angela Merkel represented. After the change of power, Mertz took the party's reins in January 2022. In January 2022, before Russia's full-scale offensive, Merz called on the German government not to block arms supplies to Ukrainians.