German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday that Vladimir Putin had made a fundamental miscalculation by  sending troops into Ukraine, adding that the Russian president had not achieved "a single goal" set before the attack.

Addressing lawmakers in Germany's Bundestag, Scholz said that Putin's conviction that Russia would win and Ukraine would fall within days, was a massive underestimation.

Putin "believed he could dry up Europe's solidarity by turning off our gas tap," Scholz said but he was wrong "about the courage of Ukrainians, about Europe, about us, about the character of our democracies, about our will to resist big power mania and imperialism."

Scholz emphasized the EU's support for Ukraine and said that attempts to undermine that backing are doomed to fail, in a thinly veiled message to Hungary who earlier this week dropped objections over the aid for Kyiv.

"Anyone who thinks he can undermine the values of the EU, to which every member state has committed itself, by blocking its foreign and security policies, will fail," he said.

Scholz welcomes EU expansion for Balkan countries

In his address, Scholz also said that it's in Germany's and Europe's best "interest" for the Balkan countries that are currently not in the EU to join the bloc.

Many observers have previously warned that Russia might try to use its influence in the region to destabilize the EU.

On Wednesday, Scholz welcomed the revival of EU accession talks with the six Western Balkan countries in recent months, and the decision this week to grant Bosnia candidate status, joining Albania, Moldova, the Republic of North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia who all aspire to join the bloc.

The comments from the German chancellor come a week after Austria blocked Romania and Bulgaria, who became EU members in 2007, from joining the bloc's Schengen area.

jsi/dj (AP, dpa, AFP, Reuters)

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