Putin's other world: the misconception of German Russia policy

On Monday evening in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin not only tore up the Minsk Agreement, the pride and hope of Berlin diplomacy since the invention of the Steinmeier formula.

With his speech and his decrees, Putin also shredded one of the long-standing basic assumptions of German Russia policy: that you can come to a workable agreement with Moscow even on complicated disputes if you just be patient, show understanding for the Kremlin's point of view and don't do anything understand this as a provocation.

For decades and across party lines, German foreign policy was based on the belief that there could only be security and peace in Europe

Russia.

What was meant was: only in agreement with Moscow, not in opposition.

Cooperation is always preferable to confrontation, at least from a Western perspective.

But German policy on Russia suffered precisely from this misconception: that the other side could not help but settle all conflicts of interest peacefully.

The West all too often lowered its gaze

But first, there are contradictions between the democracies of the West and Putin's empire that cannot be overcome.

Second, the Russian president has long demonstrated that he doesn't believe in compromise and compromise in foreign policy either, but only in the rights of the strongest who take what they can by force.

It has long been known that Putin lives in a different political world than the statesmen of the West.

His thoughts and actions follow a rationality that the Dutch Prime Minister Rutte now called "totally insane".

But even after the annexation of Crimea, Westerners too often lowered their eyes to face this uncomfortable truth.

The latest victims of this self-deception were French President Macron and Chancellor Scholz, who campaigned in Moscow for the resumption of the Minsk process.

The preparations for the recognition of the “people's republics” must have been in full swing.

Putin also fooled those who wanted to build golden bridges for him.

In Moscow, Scholz said it would be a "political catastrophe" if Russia recognized the separatist areas.

In this case, however, everyone would know what to do.

One can only hope so.

Nord Stream 2 is not the only thing that needs to be reassessed. German foreign policy must now finally face the question it has been avoiding for so long: How do you ensure security and peace in Europe

Russia - against a Russia whose autocrat is staring other statesmen in the face lies, breaks treaties and has neighboring countries occupied with cynical justifications?

You will have to continue talking to him too.

But negotiations with Putin only have a chance of success if they are conducted from a position of strength.

To do this, dependency on Russian energy supplies must be reduced.

The ability to defend the country and the alliance must be improved.

Above all, however, German foreign policy must no longer give Moscow the impression that it is a mixture of naivety, wishful thinking, romanticism about Russia and guilt complexes.