Asking a question at a presidential press conference is not easy, even when it's Aleksandar Vučić among their own and ready to talk for hours. When there is foreign guests, then the questions are assigned in advance. While selected journalists ask, others just listen.
In the press conference of Vučić and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy so the questions just added some liveliness, although those assigned to Ukrainian journalists and Serbian RTS were routine.
Among them, only Michael Martens, a German journalist, asked Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and a long-time correspondent in charge of the Balkans.
That question to Zelensky resulted in a minor scandal, and it read: "What can we Europeans do to help you kill more Russians... more Russian soldiers, of course?"
Russian Sputnik wrote an article about it, social networks got excited, Martens received several threats on Twitter.
Not a spokesperson for "Europeans"
Now he says for "Vreme" that he made a big mistake in this matter - because he said "we Europeans". And he, Martens, cannot be a spokesperson for the Europeans at the press conference, but only a journalist.
"First, I can't speak for the Europeans. Second, it would be correct journalistically to ask 'what European countries can do'. 'We' is activist, it escaped me even though I always try to be careful. That was a mistake," Martens told "Vreme".
But behind the radically harsh wording about "killing Russian soldiers" is He already wrote on Twitter that this is how wars are won.
Invoking Churchill
Now he says he has been working for months on an essay that would be called "Killing the Russians" with the subtitle "what Europe must do."
He says that he was inspired by the memoirs of Fitzroy Maclean, Winston Churchill's liaison officer with Tito's partisans. Churchill reportedly told McLean that he would support Tito and that he should help him "kill more Germans."
Something like that, says Martens, is necessary when it comes to Western policy towards the war in Ukraine.
"In Germany, at the beginning of the war, we heard from Olaf Scholz the lukewarm words that Ukraine must not lose and Russia must not win. I think politicians should talk like Churchill," says Martens.
"I expect every responsible politician to think about how we can kill so many Russians - Russian soldiers - that Putin is left without soldiers. Only then will there be peace. Everything else is cynical exaggeration. Yes, we have to negotiate, but Putin must first force himself to negotiate," he adds for "Vreme".
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