A decree released by Zelensky’s presidential office on Saturday afternoon only mentioned Melnik’s “dismissal,” without providing further information on the reasons for his removal, where the ambassador would go or who would replace him. German media had previously reported that Melnyk, who served as ambassador in Berlin for almost eight years, would return to the foreign ministry in Kyiv and could even take on a more senior role as Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, although this has not been confirmed. Melnik was a determined but controversial top diplomat in Germany. He openly criticized the government in Berlin for the slow pace of arms deliveries to Ukraine in the first months of the war and strongly urged Olaf Solz’s government to do more. In May, he directly attacked Chancellor Scholz, saying he was behaving “like an offended liver sausage” — which is German slang for someone who is easily offended. Melnyk had sparked controversy in an interview last week in which he defended Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist leader and Nazi collaborator who was assassinated in 1959. The ambassador said “Bandera was not a mass murderer of Jews and Poles.” , arguing that there was no evidence of such accusations. Melnyk’s remarks caused an outcry in Germany, but reactions were even stronger in Poland – one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters in the war against Russia – where the foreign ministry formally protested in Kyiv. Israel’s embassy in Germany had also condemned Melnyk’s statements, saying that “the Ukrainian ambassador’s statement is a distortion of historical facts, belittles the Holocaust and is an insult to those murdered by Bandera and his people.” Ukraine’s foreign ministry publicly distanced itself from Melnyk’s remarks last week. In a statement, the ministry said that “the opinion expressed by ambassador … Melnyk in an interview with a German journalist is his own and does not reflect the position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.”
