Simonetta Sommaruga in Ukraine (World 2021, by Niels Ackermann) - Swiss Press Award
Sonntags Blick Magazine
Niels Ackermann
The President of the Swiss Confederation is Switzerland’s representative abroad. In 2020, year of the coronavirus, things take a different turn: Simonetta Sommaruga ends up being mainly Switzerland’s representative on the phone. However, there is one state visit she does make in person – in July she travels to Ukraine. Together she and President Volodymyr Zelensky review the troops in front of the Mariyinsky Palace in Kiev; she takes in a view of the capital from the roof of a prefabricated building, she visits a water treatment plant and a start-up centre. Most importantly, Sommaruga travels to the East, which is occupied by pro-Russian separatists: Ukraine is a country at war and the truce is fragile. The planned state dinner on 21 July has to be called off at short notice – the president is negotiating with the hijacker of a bus, who is threatening to shoot the passengers.
Interview with Niels Ackermann
