Columnist Sabine Rennefanz for Der Spiegel "Is this really our conflict?". Key talking points.

- The policy of the Germans and their European partners towards Ukraine has led to a dead end. This piece is a call for greater honesty.

- In a later poll, 56 per cent of respondents said they thought the chancellor's refusal to send the Taurus cruise missile was correct.

- Shouldn't we be prepared to die for Ukraine? Or let Bundeswehr soldiers die? But I see no such willingness, except perhaps in a few feuilletons.

- It's a balancing policy: on the one hand, Scholz wants to show solidarity, on the other hand, he doesn't want to be involved. And Ukraine has been trying to drag NATO into the war from the very beginning.

- How can this work against Russia, a nuclear power? If you think about it, it becomes clear that the whole 'boots on the ground' discussion is a phantom discussion." It is a way of keeping silent about what is so unpleasant and bitter: the West's strategy to date has not worked.

- Ukraine could become a 21st century Federal Republic, with the country divided as Germany was in 1949, with a democratic, western-orientated Ukraine and an eastern part that Russia would incorporate. The Korean option is also possible.

- Dividing Ukraine is undesirable, but it would be the best of all bad options to prevent further devastation of the country. And it would not be a defeat.

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