Olaf Scholz, the chancellor of Germany has claimed that sanctions imposed by the west on Russia were harming his nation and its allies.
However, he insisted that since freedom, democracy, and solidarity with friends and partners come at a cost, Europe and its allies would have to pay the price.
He promised that Germany will continue to support Ukraine during a speech at the Annual meeting of the Federation of German Industries on Tuesday, as reported by CNN.
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‘Unprecedentedly tough sanctions’ were imposed on Russia. ‘These sanctions do work. Yes, these sanctions are hurting ourselves as well. They hurt our companies, but they are right,’ Scholz said.
‘Freedom has its price. Democracy has its price. Solidarity with friends and partners has its price. And we are prepared to pay this price,’ Scholz said.
Scholz said his trip to Irpin near Kyiv last Thursday made clear to him that Ukraine belonged to the European family.
In a related development, fresh analysis has revealed that China has increased their number of crude oil imports from Russia in May according to their customs data which has also helped to offset some of the losses from Western nations while trying to scale back Russian energy purchases over the invasion of Ukraine.
This recent spike in the oil trade between the two nations has also shown that Russia will be overtaking Saudi Arabia to become China’s top oil provider as the West places stringent actions on most of Moscow’s energy exports.
The world’s second-biggest economy imported around 8.42 million tonnes of oil from Russia last month — a 55 percent rise on-year.
Beijing has refused to publicly condemn Moscow’s war and has instead exacted economic gains from its isolated neighbour. It imported 7.82 million tonnes of oil from Saudi Arabia in May.