Guilty conscience starting to get the better of her?? Self medicating to counter all the BS she knows she spouts.
I think it's more about being pro Russia than pro Putin. There certainly wasn't any love lost between most German leaders and Putin from shortly after Schröder was voted out in 2006. However, there has for a long time been a strong desire to mend relations with Russia as such. The history between Germany and Russia in the 20th century was dominated by two bloody conflicts that caused untold suffering on all sides, and one of Germany's most important cities is now called Kaliningrad. When the Iron Curtain fell in the late 80s and early 90s, there was a genuine desire to not repeat the mistakes of the past and build up a lasting relationship between the two countries. Dealing with unsavory characters such as Putin was considered as a necessary evil to build such a relationship. Russia and what is now Germany had gotten along well in the past, there's a reason there are places called Kronstadt and Peterhof surrounding St. Petersburg, which in itself is directly transposed from its originally German spelling into Cyrillic, apart from a short period during WW1 when it was named Petrograd.
It is this desire to mend fences with Russia, together with an overconfidence in the back channel diplomacy practiced since the days of Willy Brandt, which in my opinion blinded lot of decision makers in Bonn and later Berlin during the late 1900s and early to mid 2000s. They saw the indisputable beauty & scale of Russia without noticing the darkness that was already brewing. And quite a few decisionmakers are still in denial, particularly amongst the social democratic party (SPD) and the conservatives (CDU).
And apparent translation
I think hatred was very much a two-way emotion between Putin and Merkel.
The German policy decision wrt their energy is another matter entirely, but Merkel wasn't driven by any great grá for the endorsement of Putin..
Trump, Orban and Berlusconi say hello.
And if you think Merkel was 'pro-Putin', you're off your head. She is well documented as detesting him.
The international mediia should categorically state without question that the RU army had no hand, act or part in the bombing of that train station and see what kind of a response comes from the Kremlin. The claim should be issued late in the day when Putins PR team are bleary eyed after another hard day. It normally takes the opposite view to what the western media states. So it might say therefor that they DID bomb it. It would be worth a try.
In theory it has, it's actions leave that as unclarified.
People go on about Pro Putin people being elected, for 20 years Germany has been radically pro Putin and his invasion in 2014 seemed to Only spur the German establishment and leadership on in that regard.
I suspect that there will never again be a leader as Pro Putin as Merkel, no matter the country or the turbulence that leads to their election.
According to the Russian liars / criminals, every time civilians die in Ukraine, they were killed by the Ukrainians themselves i.e. Ukraine is waging war on its own people.
Has there been a more morally degenerate regime in Europe in the last few decades?
Someone here did say at the start of this that these sanctions were a bit rushed and not thought through very well. I mean who would believe countries would actually sanction a country that it's whole economy depends on 🤦♂️
Now just on the exchange rate Europe will be paying 20%+ for commodities once they pay in Roubles.
QPR has a fairly broad range of support from what I have seen😉
One russian Rocket cost millions, Killing fleeing children in a bombing in a railway station in order to blame your enemy is worth millions in propaganda, to write 'for the children' on a clearly Russian bomb not knowing it would survive the blast priceless
It's all a load of shíte. Condemn it. What does that even mean. Do they really think Putin cares or is it actually their way of doing something while doing nothing.
The sad thing about this is that Putin has been proven right, the west is weak. It has no stomach and he'll do as he pleases. And he will continue to do as he pleases as no amount of raped toddlers, civilians butchered or humanitarian corridors bombed is enough to get anyone with the power to push back to even lift a finger.
We've become completely morally bankrupt, we stand for nothing only our own comfort and self preservation. And when he eventually points his weapons at the west we'll deserve everything we get for leaving these people to fend for themselves whilst we spectate.
Carmakers scrambling for supplies of Palladium in South Africa. Price up 8% today
Another russian war crime and another press conference to condemn it …..
Of course they're not. It is all a deep fake and Putin is in the Bahamas playing Ludo with Lukashenko.
The sanctions are unprecedented, now WW2 nor Cold War, nothing like this has been done before.
The only problem can be if we over egg the sanctions, cripple Euro manufacturing, shift more manufacturing to China and throw EU into a deep recession.
None of those things help Ukraine
Yes, would agree with you. Made the post after reading some earlier I think which were suggesting this happening might end the war quickly (usual stuff blaming Germany for everything).
Sorry, I carried on working on that post after I hit "Post Comment" (a bad habit) and edited it a good bit after you quoted me.
Stopping the oil and gas trade with Russia immediately across the EU won't stop the war straight away either I think.
In terms of its effects, it's more of a future strategy and will probably ensure that Russia becomes a sort of backwater. As we move more strongly away from fossils anyway the scope for income on that front will become a lot more limited.
If this is true, they're getting closer to Kherson. If they do manage to retake the city (the largest city the Russians have managed to take so far) I don't think they'll be getting across the Dnipro.
It won't make Russia's armies and their stockpile of Soviet weapons disappear in a puff of smoke when the European energy money stops. Unfortunately I think the peace talks are not serious on Russia's part. IMO, only
will end it.
That's what you get when you have a greedy geriatric smurf as a chancellor and Dolores Umbridge as minister for defense! Seriously, Christine Lambrecht is turning out to be the worst minister of defense in a long while in Germany, which is quite an achievement when the competition includes Ursula von der Leyen. From what I'm getting from German news reports, it appears as if she is extremely territorial, vindictive and stubborn and does not want any scrutiny of her ministry. There are indications that she is holding back deliveries simply as payback for criticism.
Having said that, even with that recalcitrant gremlin, there's quite a bit that Germany is doing nonetheless, beyond the thorny issue of sanctions, both with logistics and with direct military deployments.
Now, I'm German myself and I'm personally disgusted at the way leading politicians such as president Steinmeier, chancellor Scholz or ministers Lambrecht & Lindner are acting. However, given how run-down Germany's military still is in many parts, there's not really that much to give, especially now that Germany has stood up it's component to the NATO Response Force. Having said that, Scholz really needs to swallow his pride, cut the gas deliveries, and become much more proactive in addressing the needs of Ukraine.
France is toying with canning internal flights (except to places like Corsica obviously). They have a rather glorious train infrastructure set up to fall back on though.
Well I'm including the West London luvvies as well. In fact all the posh nob areas of London, but I didn't want to type out every single one, clever dick.
People do come up with the most "brilliant" of ideas at times like these.
You can bookmark it. Le Pen is not getting anywhere near the Élysée. Getting withing 20 percentage points of Macron in the run-off would be a very good day at the polls for her.
I'm willing to take the opprobrium and mockery if I'm wrong, but I won't be losing any sleep about being wrong about this one.
The biggest move for Germany was to lift that ban of weaponry they had sold being sent on to third parties. That was a 50 year old policy. The new budget follows on from that position change.
How many ate boiled shoe after Brexit or Trump got in ? That's the world we are living in at the moment where crazy things happen. I wont pretend to understand French politics, but I do understand that nothing is certain when it comes to a public vote.
I'll eat a boiled shoe if Le Pen even gets within 10-15 percent of Macron in the final run-off.
This is how French Presedential elections work. Some head the ball does a bit of front-running in the first round, makes some noise and may squeek into final run-off, and then other candidates' voters break hard for the less insane candidate.
He wholloped her by 30 points in 2017 and things haven't significantly changed in France. He's not particularly popular, but the French public won't let someone that far right anywear near the Élysée.
Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-macron-says-he-entered-presidential-race-later-than-he-wished-radio-2022-04-08/
She tends to always underperform her polling. But it is definitely a possibility that she wins, if a small one.
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