When Social Democratic politicians talk about Russia today, they are usually remorseful in the face of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. They admit to mistakes in their assessment of Vladimir Putin and regret not having listened enough to the warning voices from East-Central Europe.
Angela Merkel sounds quite different: she has no illusions about the Russian president, she says; She cannot see any mistakes in her Russia policy in her increasingly frequent speeches. But on the merits, the self-assured former chancellor and her contrite-looking former coalition partners are not as far apart as it seems at first glance.
The justifications and explanations that many Social Democrats add also form the core of Merkel's argument: they acted according to the knowledge of the time. It was right to have sought understanding with Moscow. "Diplomacy is not wrong if it does not succeed," said Angela Merkel. In other words, Germany has done everything it can to preserve peace – but what can you do if Putin doesn't appreciate it?
Of course, the blame for the war in Ukraine does not lie with Berlin, but solely with those in Moscow who started it. And no one can say whether a different policy would have deterred the Kremlin from invading Ukraine. But Germany's Russia policy, which SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich still calls a "policy of détente," has not simply failed: it has encouraged the Kremlin to continue its aggression against Ukraine since 2014.
Berlin behaves according to Moscow's expectations
When Russia recognized the so-called "people's republics" in Donbas as "independent" in February 2022, three days before the major attack, Russia's former president Dmitry Medvedev said: Since the Russian-Georgian war in 2008, it has been known that the West first makes a lot of noise in such cases, but then comes back on its own and wants to talk to Russia: "Because Russia is for the world community, for our friends in the US and the EU much more important than Ukraine." The risk is therefore not too great, Medvedev said.
Between the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the first missiles on Kyiv in February 2022, German policy provided the Russian leadership with many confirmations of this perception. Nine years ago, Germany played a decisive role in the EU's united response to Russia's aggression with sanctions.
But at the same time, the German government stuck to the idea that security in Europe can only be achieved with and not before or against Russia. When Moscow provoked, Berlin avoided clear reactions, so as not to let tensions get worse. Any statement from Moscow, which could somehow be understood as a sign of détente, was readily taken up. Germany, the largest country in the EU, followed exactly the pattern of behavior described by Medvedev.
Much worse, however, was that with its support for the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline, the German government gave Moscow the impression that Germany was ready to sell Ukraine. While Russia openly disregarded the Minsk agreements on the war in Donbass and established a bloody occupation regime there, Germany was prepared to make a billion-dollar deal with Russia at the expense of Ukraine (with which it also increased its own energy dependence on Russia). It was obvious that Nord Stream 2 was directed against Ukraine; at the initial stage of the project in 2015, this was openly admitted in Russia.
A reappraisal is necessary
In the years that followed, the Kremlin could do whatever it wanted – build the Crimean bridge, which violated international law, take Ukrainian sailors hostage, organize a murder in the middle of Berlin: Germany held on to Nord Stream 2 unswervingly.
And the absurd claim that the pipeline is not a political project, but above all a private-sector project remained – or even exaggerated it into a connecting element between Germany and Russia in difficult times. Is it conceivable that this did not have a significant impact on the Kremlin's assessment of risk?
Nord Stream 2 and Germany's illusions about Russia are a thing of the past. Hardly anyone in German politics believes in the possibility of a compromise with the Putin regime. But this does not make it superfluous to come to terms with Germany's role in the prehistory of the war. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from these bitter truths for the future.