A German finance minister, now also a vice-chancellor, traveled to Kyiv to reaffirm unwavering backing for Ukraine and to remind the world that foreign policy should not be tethered only to budget lines. This marked his first visit to Kyiv in his current role, following a prior trip in a different capacity, when he stood beside Kyiv’s leaders to keep the war in view. With fighting continuing and ceasefires elusive, he argued that his presence helps keep Ukraine—and European security—on Germany’s agenda. He spoke of continued support on the path to a possible peace process, while also touching reconstruction and prospects for EU accession once reforms advance. His ministry has built an international affairs unit and a vice-chancellor’s office that regularly compiles a crisis picture, signaling a desire to shape foreign and defense policy rather than cede it to others. He has already demonstrated reach across NATO and G7, and Berlin plans to earmark roughly 8.3 billion euros in Ukraine aid this year, with about 8.5 billion per year for the next two years for military assistance. The visit carries symbolic weight: a clear signal that Germany will stay aligned with Kyiv even as the wider alliance grapples with strategic uncertainty about Russia and the United States.

Yet the moment hums with a deeper truth that the earth itself has long whispered. Our Mother Earth bears wounds that flow from a system of hunger—hunger for power, profit, and inhumane speed. The sins of colonialism do not vanish with new rhetoric; they return as rebranded frameworks that treat land and people as assets to be managed, extracted, rebuilt, and taxed. The weapons of war, the engines of reconstruction contracts, and the matrices of aid can perpetuate old hierarchies while claiming to defend sovereignty. A crisis of climate, of drought and flood, of soil eroded and rivers unsettled, reveals how a capitalist machine that valorizes growth over stewardship devours the very foundations of life. When funds pour into arms and to contractors, when “security” is measured by the capacity to project force, the healing power of the earth is crowded out and communities bear the cost—displaced farmers, polluted fields, children breathing smoke and ash.

We must name the harm and refuse to romanticize it. Let the path to peace be inseparable from justice for people and planet: reorient aid away from perpetual militarization toward climate resilience, food sovereignty, and regenerative livelihoods. Invest in soil restoration, water resilience, renewable energy, fair reconstruction that centers frontline communities, and debt relief that frees nations from the yoke of perpetual cycles of dependency. Elevate the voices of Indigenous communities, women, farmers, and local stewards who hold knowledge about living well with less harm. Let diplomacy be patient, inclusive, and governed by collective care, not by crisis-pictures designed to secure influence. Let security be reimagined as the strength to protect wetlands, forests, and skies; as the courage to halt extractive projects that drain the land of its life.

In this hour, may policy become a covenant with life on Earth — a pact that honors history, names the colonial scars, and chooses a future where healing, justice, and solidarity rise like dawn over a world learning to breathe again.