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Germany stares at incidence levels and argues over lockdown details.
In the pandemic, the republic threatens to lose track of things.
The latest developments in connection with the Russian vaccine Sputnik V.
Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder announced that his state had secured 2.5 million doses of the vaccine.
Other federal states, above all Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, want to rely on Sputnik.
Under pressure from the federal states, Health Minister Jens Spahn has meanwhile agreed to negotiate with Russia.
Söder, his Mecklenburg colleague Manuela Schwesig and other Sputnik fans act responsibly, argue that the additional vaccination doses save human lives.
But what they do is really negligent.
They not only make false promises to the citizens - they even act against German interests.
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First: Germany doesn't need Sputnik.
Germany will receive more than 200 million vaccine doses by the end of September.
Only around 120 million doses are required to achieve herd immunity.
Germany has an acute vaccine problem, but not a long-term one.
"We have absolutely no need for Sputnik V," said Thierry Breton, the head of the EU vaccine task force a few days ago.
That's right, also for Germany.
Second: Germany cannot get Sputnik in time.
Production in Russia is very slow - so far, not even half as many doses have been administered per capita as in Germany.
Now the Sputnik manufacturer is building a network of foreign factories.
But it will take months for these to start up.
This also applies to the plant in Illertissen in Bavaria, where Markus Söder wants to get his Sputnik cans from.
Sputnik V is a good vaccine, it can help save many lives around the world over the next two years.
But it will come too late for Germany and the EU.
That means: an order has no medical benefit.
But very high political costs.
Sputnik V is an instrument of power
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Thirdly, for the Kremlin, Sputnik V is an instrument of power.
The vaccine is to play a decisive role in achieving the medium-term core goal of current Russian foreign policy: to break Germany and the EU out of the transatlantic alliance with the USA - and to bind them to Russia in the long term.
Since US President Biden took office, the Kremlin has not missed an opportunity to formulate this goal unequivocally.
The transatlantic rift that opened up in the Trump years should not close again.
Europe should not return to being anchored in NATO, but rather distance itself from the USA.
The head of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, who has been Putin's close friend for many years, recently explained in an interview with the newspaper “Kommersant” what role Sputnik V is playing in this.
"We are ready to sit down at the negotiating table with our European partners," said Patrushev.
“This is especially important now, at the height of the pandemic.
Europe needs help and many European countries have asked for our vaccine to save the lives of their citizens.
If you need us, we are ready to help. "
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It's the Nord Stream 2 pattern.
Just like the Baltic Sea pipeline, Sputnik V is supposed to convey an alleged fact to the Europeans: it won't work without Russia.
Europe, the Kremlin signals, has to choose between Russia and the USA.
The moment when US President Biden recently described the Russian President as a “murderer”, Putin-intimate Patrushev said in the “Kommersant” interview, was comparable to the Fulton speech of 1946. In this, Winston Churchill explained, in the presence of US -President Woodrow Wilson, the Soviet Union as the enemy.
It was the beginning of the Cold War.
Germany is getting tangled up in the pandemic pandemic.
Russia thinks in long lines.
Putin and his entourage like to go back in their statements to the First World War.
The central message: The US pretended to liberate the world for a century, but has subjugated it.
Europe must finally understand this - and work more closely with Russia.
That Russia is currently expanding its military presence in eastern Ukraine and at the same time offering the EU states its vaccine as a rescue - a temporal coincidence?
Share freedom values with the United States
Germany and the EU must not forget two things.
First: You share your liberal values with the USA, where a president has just been democratically voted out.
Not with Russia, where the president has been transforming a young democracy into sole rule for two decades.
Second, in a world where the US is turning away from Europe and turning to Asia, Russia is not an alternative ally, but a rival.
Less than a year ago, Chancellor Angela Merkel accused the Kremlin of "attempted poisoning" of the regime critic Alexej Navalny.
Less than two months ago, she criticized the verdict against Navalny as “far removed from the rule of law”.
Now German politicians are turning against the EU and want to buy a vaccine from Russia that you don't need?
Even if the EU made mistakes in procuring vaccines and was left behind against Great Britain and the USA: They vaccinate faster than most countries in the world, also faster than Russia.
Not buying Sputnik V but not buying it would be a forward-looking signal for German and European politics.
Because the EU doesn't just have to show strength when it comes to vaccination.
It must be able to intervene militarily in wars such as in Syria or Libya - instead of allowing Russia (and Turkey) to become the leading powers.
It must protect its external borders instead of giving Russia (and Turkey) control over migration flows.
It must become independent of Russian natural gas, if necessary with its own new nuclear power plants.
Markus Söder, however, falls for the Kremlin's siren songs.
Or he has enough hallodrism to use the Russian vaccine for short-term political profiling.
Both are unacceptable for a potential next Chancellor.