Ukrainian diplomats will not lay flowers at Soviet memorials in Berlin

The Ukrainian embassy in Germany stated that it deliberately refuses to lay wreaths and flowers at Soviet memorials or at places with Soviet symbols in Berlin in 2023. Diplomats will instead visit Germany’s Neue Wache memorial to the victims of war and tyranny, along with the ruling mayor of Berlin, Kai Wegner. The court had previously lifted the ban on Ukrainian and Russian symbols on memorials in the German capital.

The diplomatic mission explained its decision by the armed conflict with Russia. According to the embassy, ​​the memorials “rebroadcast Stalinist and Russian propaganda.” As an example, diplomats cite such phrases as “For the Motherland”, “For Stalin”, “The Great Patriotic War”, “1941-1945”.

Ukrainian diplomats also plan to visit the historic building of the Reichstag together with the German deputies and examine the inscriptions left there by the Red Army soldiers in 1945. In the evening they will take part in a memorial procession.

The decision to change the format of the commemorative events was made by Ambassador Alexei Makeev. His predecessor Andrei Melnik laid a wreath at the Soviet memorial in the Tiergarten park in 2022.

The Berlin authorities had previously imposed a ban on Russian, Ukrainian and Soviet symbols on the territory of the memorials to Soviet soldiers in the Treptow, Tiergarten and Schönholzer Heide parks on May 8 and 9. Similar restrictions were in effect in 2022. The administrative court lifted the ban, first for Ukrainian, and then for Russian symbols. The Berlin police decided to appeal the decision only in relation to the symbols of the Russian Federation.

Leonid Uvarchev