Berlin, 21 February 2025 (dpa/MIA) - German conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz expressed his shock at US President Donald Trump's statements on the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Friday, decrying Trump's sudden verbal attacks on Ukraine's leadership.

"This is basically a classic perpetrator-victim reversal," Merz told rbb public radio in Berlin. "That's the Russian narrative, that's how [President Vladimir] Putin has been presenting it for years and I'm honestly quite shocked that Donald Trump has now obviously adopted it himself."

Merz is the clear front-runner to become Germany's next chancellor after Sunday's nationwide election, with his centre-right CDU/CSU bloc long holding a clear lead in the polls.

"It is now important that the Europeans agree very, very quickly on a common strategy for dealing with this issue," Merz added about Trump's new friendliness toward the Putin.

Pleading and begging for a place at the negotiating table is not the right approach, he said: "We must now develop our own weight."

In recent comments, Trump directly blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the fact that the war in Ukraine, started by Russia's invasion, is still ongoing.

MIA file photo