The chancellor should think not about Kyiv, but about Moscow

German Chancellor Scholz's announcement of his intention to spend billions of dollars to rebuild Ukraine, and the suggestion that it would be larger than the American Marshall Plan, suggests that European politicians urgently need a special course in Russian proverbs and sayings.

I don’t know if there is an analogue of the phrase “to share the skin of an unkilled bear” in German, but this is exactly it.

No one in Europe yet knows where the border between Russia and Ukraine will lie and whether an independent Ukraine will exist as a result of the operation.

There is not the slightest doubt that no one in Moscow questioned the sovereignty of Ukraine on February 24.

Denazification and demilitarization do not at all mean the complete elimination of the state against which the special operation is being carried out.

But as the range of weapons supplied by the West to Ukraine grew, the goals of the special operation also changed.

And the direct communication of Russian politicians with people in the liberated territories called into question even the hypothetical probability of their return under the rule of Ukraine.

Therefore, a natural question arises: what kind of Ukraine is Scholz going to restore?

Lviv region, which, quite possibly, Poland will want to regain?

Or the Kyiv region of the Russian Federation?

Of course, it would be fair for the Europeans, whose collective guilt in the destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure is obvious and undeniable, to pay for the restoration of bridges, factories and other facilities that destroy the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the territory that until recently was controlled by Kyiv.

But there are serious doubts that they will want to do it voluntarily.

Moreover, this hypothetical aid should not be compared with the Marshall Plan.

We, unlike Scholz, remember very well the consequences of the implementation of this plan in Western Europe.

To the complete loss of independence - both economic and political ...

The latest to resist American hegemony was General Charles de Gaulle, who withdrew France from NATO's military structure.

And the mass student uprisings of 1968, shortly after which de Gaulle was forced to resign—were they not the first attempt at the pen of American specialists in “color revolutions”?

We have to state the obvious.

Scholz, like many of his colleagues who now lead European countries, knows the past extremely poorly and cannot imagine the future.

He lives in some kind of virtual reality in which kind Uncle Sam, out of the kindness of his heart, helped Europeans recover from the devastating World War II.

And now kind Europeans will help unfortunate Ukraine recover.

And evil Russia will go somewhere - it is not in this story.

All this looks implausible even as a bedtime story for a German child whose parents have little idea of ​​how and with what money they will heat their house in the coming winter.

Europe should first of all think about itself, about how to live on and how to build relations with Russia.

After all, we will not disappear anywhere, as well as our concern for our own security.

And no matter how the situation turns in such a way that Europe itself will again need a new Marshall Plan.

But the United States will clearly not be up to the Europeans - they have too many internal problems that will only get worse.

And if Washington does not radically change its foreign policy, then external problems will sooner or later become extremely serious.

In any case, the Americans will not care about the Europeans.

But Russia will not go anywhere from Europe, even if it completely reorients its economy to the East and South in the coming years.

Therefore, if Scholz was a realist, not a dreamer, he would, firstly, remember all the negative consequences of the Marshall Plan for Europe and not try to repeat them.

And secondly, I would think not about Ukraine, but about restoring relations with Russia.

Unlike the United States, we do not demand the deployment of our military bases, adherence to our values, active “friendship against” other countries.

We simply ask you to remember that for centuries Europe has been attacking Russia and trying to destroy us, and not the other way around.

So we have every right to worry about our own safety.

Unfortunately, there are only one or two realists among the leaders of European countries.

Well, let's hope that the awareness of the need for good neighborly relations with Russia will come to the Europeans before their countries need a new Marshall Plan.

And we will somehow deal with Ukraine ourselves.

Not the first time.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.