Schönbach resigned his position after his political remarks regarding the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian crisis and prospects of Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO sparked intense opposition from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.

Schönbach's subsequent assignments included being the commander of the Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 from June to December 2016 and of the Mürwik Naval School from January 2017 to May 2018, when he became Deputy Head of Strategy and Operations at the Federal Ministry of Defence.

[1] Schönbach's talk on 21 January 2022 at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA) think tank in New Delhi, amid the growing tensions on the Russian-Ukrainian border, made international news headlines and caused a political controversy.

He further added that Vladimir Putin "wants and probably also deserves respect", Ukraine was not ready to join NATO, and while Georgia met the requirements, it would not be "smart" to admit the country into the alliance.

Ambassador of Ukraine to Germany Andriy Melnyk said that Schönbach's "patronising attitude subconsciously also reminds Ukrainians of the horrors of the Nazi occupation, when Ukrainians were treated as subhuman.”[3] Schönbach also told his interlocutors being a "very radical Roman Catholic" himself and suggested that "Russia is a Christian country" and the country is needed against China "even if Putin is an atheist, it doesn’t matter”.