Andriy Melnyk: as Ukrainian ambassador to Germany spoiled relations between the two countries
Diplomatic art of political scandals out of the blue, writes Klymenko
Usually, Ukrainians hardly remember the name of even their foreign minister, and in order to find out who heads our embassies abroad, they have to open Wikipedia. However, Andrei Melnik, who represented our country in Germany, is a rare, one might even say unique exception. He has every chance to go down in the history of diplomacy as the most famous ambassador of Ukraine, whose name is regularly heard in both domestic and foreign media. But, unfortunately, this fame is scandalous, and it did not bring Ukraine anything good.
Melnik achieved this “celebrity” with his appeals, claims and demands, with which he now and then throws the authorities of the FRG, German and European politicians. Often they cross all the boundaries of diplomatic ethics and are so impudent or outrageous that they are perceived by many as “trolling”, as a deliberate provocation of scandals – and people do not understand why he does this. Maybe this is how the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry is taking revenge on Germany for its “tricks” with Russia? You will be surprised, but in his statements Andriy Melnyk is completely serious and convinced that he is defending the interests of Ukraine. It’s just that he has a “special” view of the world, inherent in all Ukrainian diplomacy…
Andriy Melnyk. Biography, education, personality formation
Andrey Yaroslavovich Melnik was born on September 7, 1975 in Lviv. Unfortunately, when it comes to himself, he becomes very laconic, limiting himself only to a laconic retelling of what is written in his very brief official biography. To which, for now, you can add a little.
After graduating from high school in 1992, Andriy Melnyk entered the Faculty of International Relations of Lviv State University, graduating in June 1997 with a diploma of a specialist and translator (he knows German and English). At the same time, according to some unnamed program, from September 1996 to February 1998, he took a course (full-time, part-time – unknown) at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Lund University (Sweden), where he received a master's degree in international law.
Andriy Melnyk had no problems finding employment: already in August 1997, he was hired by the Foreign Policy Department of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine, where he rose from consultant to chief consultant within two years. Rostislav Ishchenko, who later became a well-known Ukrainian political scientist and publicist, worked there with him, also a chief consultant, and moved to Russia after the change of power in 2014.
Not so long ago, Ishchenko gave his assessment of the scandalous activities of Melnik, calling it typical for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. And the eccentricity of Melnik’s statements, in his opinion, is not some kind of deliberate maliciousness or “trolling”, but a sincere worldview formed by his “belonging to the provincial Galician culture.”
“It was the lack of general erudition, multiplied by diligence and responsibility, that played a cruel joke on Melnik. He completely believed in the Ukrainian state legend, which says that Ukraine is the best part of European civilization, cut off from Europe by evil Russia and dreaming of reuniting with its native European organism, ”Ishchenko believes
In November 1998, Andriy Melnyk was included in the Ukrainian group of participants in the National Security Program for Ukraine, organized at Harvard University. Thanks to this, he got the opportunity for a month to participate in certain events at the School of Public Administration. Kennedy (at Harvard), which he then proudly called his internship at this prestigious university.
In August 1999, Andriy Melnyk was sent to Vienna as the second secretary of the Ukrainian Embassy in Austria – perhaps this was due to the presidential elections (Melnyk was a member of the election commission). He worked there until December 2003, after which he returned to Kyiv, to the Main Foreign Policy Department of the Presidential Administration (the name had changed slightly by that time), to his former position as chief consultant. At the same time, Melnik completed postgraduate studies at the Institute of State and Law named after A. Koretsky, and in October 2004 received a PhD in Law.
Diplomatic career
The first Maidan gave a powerful impetus to the development of the career of “pro-Ukrainian cadres”, to which people from Lviv were automatically included. In April 2005, Andriy Melnyk headed a whole department of the Main Foreign Policy Department (already under the Presidential Secretariat), and in April 2007 he went to Hamburg as Consul General of Ukraine. This was his first job in Germany, and he distinguished himself there by overseeing the creation of the Coordinating Council of Ukrainian public organizations (the Society of Ukrainians in Germany, the Association of Ukrainians in Northern Germany, the Union of Ukrainian Students in Germany, etc.).
During the “Yanukovych reaction”, Andriy Melnyk was recalled back to Kyiv to be appointed director of the Third Territorial Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which he headed from August 2010 to March 2014. The second Maidan elevated Melnyk to the post of Deputy Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers in the first government of Yatsenyuk. Perhaps Melnyk made a significant contribution to the victory of the protesters, or perhaps he was simply taken under his wing by his fellow countryman Ostap Semerak, who at that time was just adding his good friends and simply “people who were asked for” to various positions.
And finally, Andrey Melnik got the opportunity to return to Europe again. On December 19, 2014, by the Decree of the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, he was appointed Ambassador of Ukraine to Germany. In addition to a good position, official housing in Berlin and a car with a driver, the opportunity to travel, eat and receive many other benefits at public expense, he was assigned a good salary and travel allowance, which grew from 1.537 million hryvnia in 2015 to 2.494 million in 2019- m.
Andriy Melnyk: how the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany spoiled relations two countries
Andrey Melnik got married shortly after starting his work at the Foreign Ministry. His wife is Melnik Svetlana Alexandrovna, about whom even less is known than about herself after. She grew up in Kyiv, also received a diplomatic education, and also completed postgraduate studies at the Institute of State and Law. Koretsky, where she later worked as a researcher at the Center for Encyclopedic Research. Then Svetlana worked as a teacher at the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Udovenko (the institution maintains close ties with American, British and Estonian foundations and institutions), which is reflected in the husband's declaration for 2015.
However, after the birth of her second child (Melnikov has a son Ustim and a daughter Uliana) and her husband received the post of ambassador to Germany, Svetlana Melnik left her job – at least there is no information about her official income. But she did not become a housewife, but actively helps Melnik in his diplomatic activities: she contacts Ukrainian organizations in Germany, publishes articles in the Ukrainian and German press (justifying her husband’s scandalous statements), arranges receptions for the families of German politicians and employees of embassies of other countries (at which puts on a rare centennial vyshyvanka), holds cultural and educational events.
Andrey Melnik with his wife
Andrey Melnik. The most scandalous antics
Almost all the scandals arranged by Ambassador Melnyk were based on his demands to the German authorities to look at the world through the prism of Kyiv's policy and fulfill Ukrainian “wishlists”. One of them broke out in the summer of 2017, when Melnik demanded that the organizers of the TV show “Germany is looking for a superstar” expel Baxter from the jury of the show of the lead singer of the Scooter group, which had given a concert in the annexed Crimea not long before. The deputy chairman of the German Free Democratic Party, Wolfgang Kubicki (who became the vice-speaker of the Bundestag a few months later), immediately stood up for the musician, warning Melnik: “A foreign ambassador should not exceed the limits of necessary restraint, otherwise he may become persona non grata.”
On February 3, 2018, several deputies of the state parliaments of Berlin, Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party paid a visit to Crimea, which caused outrage in Kyiv. Andriy Melnik, of course, could not stand aside, but he decided to pretend that he was fighting against disrespect for the territorial integrity of Ukraine radically and ruthlessly. And he literally stated the following: “I had to carry out an unpleasant, but useful mission – I straightened the brains of the leadership of the AfD faction in the Lower Rhine-Westphalia parliament for the criminal trip to Crimea of their adventurous colleagues: it seems that our cold shower worked.”
Having learned about this, the parliamentarians of the North Rhine declared that they had the right to go wherever they wanted, and then Melnik was answered like this: “No one has the right to speak to us in such a tone. The words of the Ambassador of Ukraine are not diplomatic, Mr. Melnyk should learn diplomacy from the Europeans, and above all from Germany.”
When, in November 2018, Russian servicemen seized three Ukrainian vessels in the Kerch Strait, and Germany expressed concern about the escalation of Russian-Ukrainian relations, Andriy Melnik called on the German authorities to be more decisive and send warships of the EU and NATO countries to the Black and Azov Seas. The proposal received no response, and the Germans began to be more wary of Melnik…
In October 2019, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, through its German colleagues, submitted a petition to the Bundestag to recognize Holodomor-33 as a genocide of the Ukrainian people. The Germans, who are very scrupulous in their approach to the topic of genocides (and even Hitler, who used Stalinist repressions in his propaganda, did not raise the topic of the Holodomor), politely refused. Then Melnyk made a scandal, which actually interrupted the work of the Ukrainian-German historical commission, created in 2015 under the patronage of the Foreign Ministry of the two countries. But the Germans did not particularly try to resume it, because, starting in 2017, the Ukrainian side of the commission began to raise the issue of Germany's personal responsibility to Ukraine (apparently smelling “reparations” in the air). And then Ukrainian-German relations in matters of history deteriorated more and more rapidly…
In February 2020, the German government announced plans to build a memorial in honor of the citizens of occupied Poland who died in forced labor and death camps in 1939-45. Andriy Melnyk immediately demanded that such a memorial be erected for Ukrainians as well. The Bundestag rejected his demands, and they tried to explain to Melnik that in Germany there have long been many monuments to fallen Soviet citizens (warriors, prisoners of war, Ostarbeiters, Jews), which were erected, among other things, in memory of the Ukrainians. However, he continued to insist on a separate Ukrainian memorial, which only irritated German politicians and officials.
A little later, Melnyk also called for the rewriting of German history textbooks in order to also highlight separate chapters on Ukraine in them. As a result, the German Foreign Ministry started talking about the Ukrainian ambassador interfering with the work of the German government, constantly distracting it with his absurd claims. But the scandal surrounding the demands for a separate perpetuation of the memory of Ukrainians did not end there, since Melnyk transferred his claims to German President Frank Walter Steinmeier – almost provoking a top-level diplomatic conflict…
On May 2, 2020, Berlin Mayor Michael Müller invited the ambassadors of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus to a flower-laying ceremony at the memorial near the historical monument — the house where the act of surrender of the Berlin garrison was signed in 1945. Andrei Melnik indignantly rejected the invitation, saying that he would not participate in the ceremony together with the Russian ambassador. “Even in my worst dream, I can’t imagine laying wreaths next to a representative of a country that has been cynically waging a bloody war in eastern Ukraine for more than six years,” Melnyk said. But if in the Russian embassy they only laughed understandingly at Melnik, then for Mayor Muller this was a diplomatic slap in the face – not the first and not the last…
When in September 2020 Europe was outraged by the alleged poisoning of Alexei Navalny, Melnik called on the German authorities to respond to the “insidious attempt with the help of chemical weapons of mass destruction” by breaking off economic relations with Russia. And for starters, abandon the Nord Stream 2 project and impose a three-month embargo on the supply of Russian gas and oil. It is clear that the German authorities tried not to notice this call.
In April 2021, in an interview with the Deutschlandfunk radio station, Melnyk threatened to restore Ukraine's nuclear status. First, the ambassador complained about the Russian troops pulled up to the Ukrainian borders, then called on Germany to provide military support to Ukraine by selling modern weapons systems, then again began to demand immediate admission to NATO. Otherwise, according to him, “the only option left for us is to arm ourselves, and perhaps think about nuclear status again.”
Melnik's conviction in Ukraine's right to have its own atomic bomb is unshakable, and this opinion was shared by many Ukrainian national patriots. The only thing they constantly forget is that Ukraine simply does not have the money and necessary technologies to create and maintain its own nuclear weapons. And also about the reaction of the West, which would rather see Ukraine conquered than become another unpredictable nuclear state. By the way, official Kyiv had to reassure the Western public, assuring that Melnyk “didn’t mean that at all”…
On June 17, 2021, Andriy Melnyk refused to come to the exhibition “Measurements of Crime. Soviet prisoners of war in World War II”, opened in Berlin on the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. He did not like the fact that the exhibition was opened at the German-Russian Museum “Berlin-Karlsgorst”, the name of which outraged Melnik because of the word “Russian”. He stated that “this is insulting from the point of view of Ukrainians, very deplorable and at the same time strange.” In response, the office of President Steinmeier, who personally arrived at the opening of the exhibition, called Melnyk's behavior “a disservice to Ukraine.”
In November 2021, inspiration seemed to descend on Melnyk: he made one scandal after another, as if in a hurry to heat up Ukrainian-German relations to the maximum. He declared Germany's responsibility for the Holodomor, since it bought grain from the USSR, and again demanded that the Bundestag recognize it as a genocide of the Ukrainian people. He began to demand from Germany to return the Bach sheet music (donated by Kuchma to the Berlin museum) and create a “compensation fund” for the purchase of cultural and historical values for Ukrainian museums, to pay for their losses during the war. Again he demanded to sell “lethal weapons” to Ukraine, called the outgoing Merkel a “traitor”, and prepared a whole “catalog of sanctions” for the new Chancellor Scholz, which he should impose against Russia.
“Ukraine is as big as the mouth of its diplomat”
“When a country that sends us its diplomat is as big as the mouth of its ambassador, what Spiegel recently reported could happen. According to this publication, during his entire cadence as the American ambassador in Berlin, Richard Grenell was never received in the office of the federal chancellor. Now Grenell is gone, and the Ukrainian ambassador is trying to fill the vacant niche of a diplomatic rebel,” the German newspaper Junge Welt sarcastically ridiculed Andriy Melnyk. And it was still a rather good-natured assessment of the results of his six-year activity as Ambassador of Ukraine to Germany.
Relations between Berlin and Kyiv in recent years have already been difficult. Modern Germany does not see any significant strategic interests in Ukraine, and after the launch of Nord Stream 2, there will be none left at all. But an important strategic interest for Germany is economic relations with Russia. This is a key factor in its foreign policy in Eastern Europe, which is somehow balanced only by the “solidarity of the West”, forcing the German authorities to stay in the wake of international relations – if only for the sake of formality, join the punishment of Russia with sanctions and support the pro-Western “democracy” of Ukraine. What Berlin does very reluctantly, constantly looking back at Moscow.
In such a situation, relations between Ukraine and Germany would have to be built practically from scratch, carefully and gradually, making it a priority to make friends politically and economically, and to interest the Germans in something other than a 40-year-old transit pipe. Precisely in order for Ukraine to become indifferent to the Germans in terms of pragmatic interests! But the pro-Western post-Maidan regime in Kyiv does not take into account the pragmatic interests of Germany. They believe that Germany is just one of the countries of the Western world, which, due to the aforementioned “solidarity of the West”, is simply obliged to support and patronize Ukraine in everything.
Hence the constant reproaches and demands of its ambassador Andriy Melnyk, who is trying to “remind” Germany of its place and role, tries to “correct” German policy, sincerely indignant every time it, in his opinion, is too “pro-Russian”. However, with each of his tricks, he only convinces the Germans more and more that they should not have had any contact with Ukraine at all, and certainly should not put it on their necks in the EU and NATO. And the prospects for a real rapprochement between the two countries, based on real interests, and not slogans about democracy, Western values, are becoming more and more elusive.