Germany’s Merz accuses Putin of murder and trying to destabilise West

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BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Wednesday accused Russia’s Vladimir Putin of murder and trying to destabilise the West by testing its limits and sabotage, speaking at a parliamentary debate where he clashed with the far-right opposition.

Merz said recent Russian incursions into Polish and Romanian airspace were part of a long-running trend of testing the West’s boundaries.

“Putin has long been testing the borders, he is sabotaging. He is spying, he is murdering, he is trying to unsettle us. Russia wants to destabilise our societies,” Merz said.

He said a Ukrainian surrender to Russia was unacceptable.

“A dictated peace, a peace without freedom, would encourage Putin to seek his next target,” he said.

Merz has previously also criticised Putin as a war criminal, prompting the Kremlin to say that the German leader’s views on the Ukrainian peace talks should be disregarded.

The Kremlin denies its forces have committed any war crimes in Ukraine and has also dismissed as nonsense claims by Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, that her husband was murdered in prison.

German support for Ukraine has drawn criticism from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), whose leader Alice Weidel on Wednesday accused Merz of “posing as a global politician and warlord”. Jens Spahn, a Merz ally, in turn said Weidel was turning into a “fifth column” for Russia.

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger, Miranda Murray and Andreas Rinke; writing by Matthias Williams)