So I judge this to probably be another misjudgement.
Trump misjudged influence on Putin, German defence minister says – U.S. President Donald Trump misjudged his influence on Russian President Vladimir Putin, Germany’s defence minister said on Wednesday, after a phone call between the two leaders yielded no progress in Ukraine peace talks, prompting Europe to announce new Russia sanctions.
“I suspect he assessed his negotiating position incorrectly,” Boris Pistorius told the Deutschlandfunk radio broadcaster, following Trump’s now-abandoned efforts to pressure Putin into accepting an unconditional 30-day ceasefire.
Trump and Putin agree on limited ceasefire – further negotiations from Sunday in Jeddah.
Russia has agreed to cease attacks on energy facilities in Ukraine for 30 days. This was announced by the Kremlin following a telephone conversation between Russian head of state Putin and US President Trump. According to the US, negotiations on an end to the Russian war of aggression are to continue in Saudi Arabia at the end of the week.
Former German leader Gerhard Schröder receives treatment after showing signs of burnout – Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who has faced heavy criticism in recent years for his ties with Russia, is receiving treatment in a hospital after showing signs of severe burnout, German news agency dpa reported Tuesday.
The 80-year-old Schröder led Germany from 1998 to 2005. He was the leader of current Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party from 1999 to 2004.
But his involvement with Russian state-owned energy companies and his reluctance after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine to distance himself wholeheartedly from Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom he has long had a friendly relationship, estranged him from the German political establishment.
Because Putin (and everybody else the world) knows that Germany is erpressbar (blackmailable, open to blackmail).
Just like the current US-Amerika government of… whoever is actually running the government at the moment.
Why Germany was key to prisoner swap deal with Russia – The German government’s decision to release a convicted Russian killer serving a life sentence for murdering an exiled Chechen in Berlin in 2019 was crucial for the prisoner swap between Russia and the West…
The main figure in the swap, which involved several countries, was Vadim Krasikov, a Russian convicted of killing a former Chechen militant in Berlin in 2019.
A clear message to future blackmailers: The German government lets a convicted murderer go free after two years in prison, just like that, somebody who bumped off one of Putin’s critics right here in Berlin’s Tiergarten, in broad daylight.
The other kids were jumping off the bridge. What, me worry?
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has not only revealed the willful ignorance of German politicians, businesspeople, and voters to Vladimir Putin’s regime, it has cast a dark backwards shadow over the tenure of former chancellor Angela Merkel.
Merkel’s lack of regrets illustrates the fallacies of Germany’s Russia policy – Russia’s war of annihilation against Ukraine and the unhinged rhetoric of its elites raise urgent questions about the future for Europeans, for the trans-Atlantic alliance, and for global order.
For a generational cohort of German politicians, some of whom are retired and some still in power, it also raises urgent questions about the past. What could they have known, or at least predicted? What bloodshed could they have prevented?
That is, “the same in green.” Even though she’s wearing red. A much more appropriate color for her, by the way.
“Das Gleiche in Grün” means it’s the same exact thing, except in a different color. Angela Merkel is no different than Gazprom Gerd, in other words. Not when it comes to being nonapologetic about relentlessly pursuing a catastrophic policy, that is.
“No Apologies”: Ex-German Chancellor Defends Her Russia Policy Amid War – Former German chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday defended her years-long policy of detente towards Moscow, saying she had “nothing to apologise for” even as the Ukraine war casts a pall on her legacy.
“Diplomacy isn’t wrong just because it hasn’t worked.”
Germany to close Schroeder’s office in repudiation of ex-chancellor – Gerhard Schroeder’s publicly funded office is to be closed and its remaining staff reallocated amid mounting dismay at the former German chancellor’s refusal to distance himself from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Gerhard Schröder to lose Bundestag office this week. The SPD, the Greens and the FDP want to strip the former chancellor (SPD) of some privileges immediately: In a draft for the budget committee, he will be deprived of offices and staff.
That means incorrigible, unreformable, incurable, dyed-in-the-wool.
Take Gazprom Gerd, for instance. Please. The Germans have pretended to be upset by his post-chancellorship antics but have secretely admired him all along, handling him with kid gloves (anyone who stands up to evil US-Amerika is a hero here). Now, with this little Ukraine thing going on, the bill finally has to be paid and everyone’s upset and wondering how they got here. Will there be consequeces for him? Of course not. Gazprom Gerd is Gazprom Gerd, after all.
The former chancellor who became Putin’s man in Germany – On the evening of Dec. 9, 2005, 17 days after Gerhard Schröder left office as chancellor of Germany, he got a call on his cellphone. It was his friend President Vladimir Putin of Russia.
Putin was pressing Schröder to accept an offer to lead the shareholder committee of Nord Stream, a Russian-controlled company in charge of building the first undersea gas pipeline directly connecting Russia and Germany.
“Are you afraid to work for us?” Putin had joked. Schröder might well have been, given the appearance of possible impropriety; the pipeline he was now being asked to head had been agreed to in the final weeks of his chancellorship, with his strong support.
He took the job anyway.
Seventeen years later, the former chancellor, who recounted the events himself in a pair of rare interviews, remains as defiant as ever.
Pass a law that mandates gas storage facilities be filled by winter.
Only, what are you going to fill these storage facilties with? If Vladimir Putin turns off the gas, I mean. Oktoberfest beer?
Germany approves law mandating full gas storage before winter – The Bundestag lower house on Friday approved legislation requiring Germany’s privately-operated gas storage facilities to be full at the start of the next winter, to try to avert shortages in the event of a halt in Russian gas imports.
Or should they try “Russian racist ideology” and “Russian death camps” first? “World War III” is getting a little tiresome, don’t you think? I just don’t know. It must be tough being a balanced and objective journalist these days.
How Far Is the Russian President Willing To Go? – The West has expressed shock over Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. But the Kremlin boss has been speaking openly for years about his vision of a Russian empire. This is the escalation he has been seeking for 20 years.
Observing Hermann 