WASHINGTON — Hours before Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) compared Europe’s attitude toward Russian President Vladimir Putin to appeasement toward Nazi Germany, the German ambassador here warned U.S. hawks not to see a military solution as the only way forward on Ukraine.
Germany has “the sense this conflict is spiraling,” Ambassador Peter Wittig said in a small briefing with reporters at the Germany embassy in Washington. But he urged proponents of sending arms to Ukraine to remember that diplomacy at the highest levels — including what he called “an unusual trip” by the leaders of Germany and France to Moscow on Friday — may still bear fruit.
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Wittig said Germany, too, is frustrated with “the lacking results of all diplomatic efforts” so far, including an agreement reached in Minsk in September that was meant to put an end to the clashes.
Still, Wittig added, the U.S. and Germany agree on the “common basis of a non-military agreement.”
