Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave a strange answer to the question of whether he would travel to Kyiv.

He finds it a "quite remarkable" event that the Federal President, who had been "nominated" for a second term in office a few weeks earlier by a "majority like, I think, no one before him," was disinvited from Ukraine.

Remarkable means: outrageous.

He doesn't take that.

What the Ukraine had to put up with, from the five thousand helmets and the ignorance of Mrs. Lambrecht to the lie that Germany is at the forefront of sanctions policy in Europe, remains unmentioned.

Scholzen's answer is strange because she wants to give the impression that a meeting has been canceled.

However, only those who have been invited can be uninvited.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier invited himself.

It was not an agreed state visit that was canceled, but a unilaterally announced visit.

The refusal was clearly not aimed at the office, but at the person who, as head of the chancellery and foreign minister, acted as a friend of Russia to a degree that was difficult to justify in the eyes of Ukraine.

He defended Nord Stream 2 to the end and pulled the strings for Gerhard Schröder, greeted his opponents Lavrov and Medvedev with friendly gestures, ignored warnings from Western partners.

Russia could do whatever it wanted (in Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea), Steinmeier found words of moderation.

More accurate reminder would be helpful

The arrogant and brazen assertion by SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich that the Ukrainian reaction to this was undue interference in Germany's domestic politics underscores this aspect.

Not only does one reject any criticism from outside, one even considers it interference if the victims of appeasement do not put on a good face to every ambiguous game.

The fact that, according to Olaf Scholz, they should have taken into account how overwhelmingly Steinmeier was elected to the presidency raises questions.

Not just those about the Chancellor's ability to remember: Steinmeier received 73 percent of the votes in the Federal Assembly, Gauck's 80 percent, and Weizsäcker's 86 percent.

This did not mean that Gauck and Weizsäcker were more legitimate federal presidents, just as Scholz, with his 25.7 second votes for the SPD in the 2021 federal election, is no less chancellor than his predecessors.

What stands in the way of his good political reputation is his style, which oscillates between moralizing, hesitation, showing rationality and being offended.

It would be gratifying if the Federal President could help him get off his high, unsteady horse by showing as much sympathy for the alleged affront to Ukraine as he once did for Russian politics.