Like his party friend, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, a week ago, Robert Habeck did not go to Berlin-Adlershof to physically take part in Anne Will's talk show.

Rather, at the beginning of the show, he gave her an interview from the heart of the capital via live broadcast.

That is a signal that the government would like to send out during these weeks of war: now is not the time for talks in television studios, where the ratio of time required to gain of knowledge is mostly questionable;

rather, they are working day and night to deal with the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and to stop Putin.

Communication with the public is also subject to the efficiency requirements of the war economy.

Matthew Alexander

Deputy head of department in the features section.

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While Habeck was giving his interview in front of the decorative background of waving black, red and gold flags on the Reichstag, a good half hour later the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was sitting in front of a makeshift flag of his country attached to a wall, probably in a bunker in Kyiv.

And once again, viewers were able to experience how members of the Ukrainian state leadership look beyond themselves in the extreme situation of war.

Dmytro confidently and calmly answered the questions of Will, who was acting concentrated this time.

He attributed Putin's recently reported willingness to talk to his high military losses.

At the same time, Kuleba did not want to let hopes for peace run wild.

He came up with a catchy formula for Ukraine's stance:

hopes, not demands

When asked by Will what demands Ukraine had of Germany, Kuleba showed all the finesse of the diplomat: They are not demanding anything from Germany, rather they are hoping for three things: weapons, sanctions and membership in the EU.

And he provided each of these three demands with a reference, and each of them was a stab in the heart of German politics: As far as weapons are concerned, he pointed out that Bosch components had been found in captured Russian military vehicles.

Regarding the lack of oil, gas and coal supplies from Russia, he recalled that Germany has acted as a major brake in the West.

And with a view to membership in the EU, he thanked

that the majority of German citizens are in favor of Ukraine's accession – unlike politics, that should mean.

The SPD chairman Lars Klingbeil looked touched at this point by the director.

Whether one can also describe Habeck's performance as sovereign depends on what one understands by sovereignty.

The "miserable situation" is attacking him, and he can't hide it and probably doesn't even want to: his voice was thick to the point of brittleness, at the end of the interview his eyes seemed to be wet.

And when he said that the situation for the federal government was "morally not nice," he mixed up aesthetics and ethics in a somewhat careless way - a rhetorical throwback to the time before the great turning point that Putin's aggression brought with it.

At the same time, the Federal Minister of Economics, who has already been seen to be quite agitated, seemed concentrated enough to explain the dilemma he is in and possible ways out for the conditions of a talk show in a very differentiated way.

He admitted that Germany is not doing everything to weaken Russia, but "only what we can be responsible for".

The dependency on Russian energy supplies is so great that it cannot be stopped without consequences that cannot be sustained.