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Vladimir Putin at an appointment in the Kremlin
Photo: Alexander Kazakov / dpa
Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in a television interview. The Green politician is not only hostile to Russia, he said in Moscow. “It is also hostile to its own country,” he said, referring to the Greens’ energy policy. The Kremlin published excerpts of the interview for the program “Moscow. Kremlin. Putin."
The Greens fueled people's fears of climate change. But when they came to power thanks to this fear, they pursued a completely different policy: In Germany, more energy is now being produced from coal, said Putin. Regarding Baerbock's alleged hostility towards his own country, the Kremlin chief said: "It is difficult to imagine that a politician of this rank would be so dismissive of the economic interests of her country, her people." He did not elaborate. The background can be assumed to be the traffic light government's policy of making Germany independent of Russian gas because of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
Baerbock makes no secret of her criticism of Russia and advocates strong European support for Ukraine.
In the interview, Putin first had to make sure that he was pronouncing the name Baerbock correctly. The reason for the comments about the German Foreign Minister was that the journalist Pawel Sarubin asked him about Baerbock's grandfather's involvement in National Socialism. The Green politician speaks openly about her grandfather, who was a Wehrmacht officer on the Eastern Front. Here Putin defended Baerbock and the younger generation in Germany. "I don't believe that the current generation of Germans should bear full political responsibility for what Nazi Germany did," said the Kremlin chief.
hen/dpa