Posted on 04/06/2022 9:46:44 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
The escalating civilian toll of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has fuelled calls for a reappraisal of more than a decade of French and German efforts to engage with a leader whose forces stand accused of committing horrific war crimes in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s embattled President Volodymyr Zelensky did not mince his words as he addressed Western leaders in a video message late on Sunday, just hours after witnessing the trail of death and destruction that Russian forces left in their wake as they retreated from Kyiv’s northern suburb of Bucha.
He had a special message for the former leaders of Germany and France, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, whom he accused of denying Ukraine a path to NATO.
"I invite Ms Merkel and Mr Sarkozy to visit Bucha and see what the policy of concessions to Russia has led to in 14 years," Zelensky said, referring to the gruesome killing of Ukrainian civilians in towns north of the capital – which world powers have described as "war crimes".
“Europe didn’t go wrong, Germany and France did,” said Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, vice-president of the German Marshall Fund and head of its Berlin office, in an interview with FRANCE 24.
“France and Germany tend to speak for the rest of Europe. But these miss-assessments were made in Paris and Berlin, not elsewhere. Eastern Europe didn’t go wrong, northern Europe didn’t go wrong,” he added.
Kleine-Brockhoff said the war in Ukraine called for an urgent reappraisal of German and French policy vis-à-vis Russia. He added: “Not only is the post-Cold War order crumbling in front of our eyes, so are the strategies deployed by Germany and France.”
(Excerpt) Read more at france24.com ...
According to democrats, France and Germany is the whole world
Q: What if France’s and Germany’s Deep States are in fact allied with Russia...?
Q: What if the only NATO country with a military worth speaking of is the U.S. and we don’t want to get dragged into something Europeans are trying to describe as “a NATO issue”?
“Did Germany and France turn blind eye to threat from Russia?”
This is no different than how European elites tried to pretend that Hitler was not a threat. They thought that by coddling and appeasing a dictator they could keep their all-important business interests going.
People always like to pretend that there’s no threat going on. They refuse to think about such things, refuse to prepare for them, and by neglecting to confront the impending crisis they make it worse.
What’s happening now with sanctions and etc. against Russia should have happened in 2014. Instead we let the Russians believe they could get away with conquering all of Ukraine and maybe even all of Eastern Europe and now we’re all scrambling to get ready for something that wiser people saw coming well before 2008.
Had Putin faced this same reaction in 2014 to what he’s doing in 2022 there would not have been a Russian invasion of Ukraine this year. We probably could have forced Putin to give up Crimea by now.
Instead we’re now faced with yet another European dictator who thought he could get away with anything and the West is playing catch up.
Give it another 80-90 years and the same thing will happen again. No one ever learns.
The United States is over 30 trillion dollars in debt. That alone should be reason enough to leave NATO and the United Nations.
France and Germany can redeem their error now at an affordable cost only if Putin is removed and a friendly, pro-Western regime installed in his place. Ukraine must therefore be backed and the war and sanctions continue until that is achieved. My guess is that a greater and sustained commitment to Ukraine will be needed and that a final settlement after Putin is kaput will eventually include NATO and EU membership for Ukraine.
Yes. Macron never thought Putin would try to take Kyiv.
Poland’s prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki has criticised French president Emmanuel Macron for negotiatiating with Vladimir Putin, who he likened to Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot, as global condemnation poured over the mass killings in Ukraine’s Bucha.
“Mr President Macron, how many times have you negotiated with Putin, what have you achieved?” Mr Morawiecki asked the French leader at a press briefing on Monday.
“Have you stopped any of the actions that have taken place?”
“the post-Cold War order crumbling in front of our eyes...”
What post-Cold War order???
Leaderless post-Cold War chaos is more like it.
Should have listened to Trump.
Yep, the only thing missing from the infamous picture of Merkel standing and appearing to talk down to Trump at the NATO meeting would be if she was holding a White Flag.
I agree that Putin must be removed and replaced with a pro-western leader, but taking down a dictator from within or by outside force will be bloody.
China is Putins only strong backstop. If the west can put enough pressure on China to squeeze Putin there is a chance he may step down, but may not bring western leadership to Russia.
I don’t see a clean end to this war.
Meanwhile, sanctions will diminish Russia's ability to maintain its stock of modern weapons and to replace losses and develop new models. That will help to protect Poland and her neighbors and the NATO member Baltic republics -- and Ukraine as well. Even now, with Russia's deep military failings so dramatically exposed, Putin's cherished project of a renewal of Russian imperial power is over.
Already, even without Putin being replaced, Russia must grapple with the failure of his vision for Russia and with the country becoming an international pariah. More and more, Russia will be a backward, nuclear armed gas station instead of a modern nation. How will Russian domestic politics process this turn of events? With no one but Putin to blame, even if he survives in power, he will not get many nights of untroubled sleep.
Interesting comments on Putins Russia. Thanks.
The wild card to me in this disaster is Germany. They are the most dependent on Russian energy and will need years to ween themselves off foreign sources. Their leadership already said “industry” would be the first to see blackouts. I just don’t think the German people will tolerate a slow economic suicide, and the EU collapses without German GDP.
Even though the German military is in tatters, it would not surprise me if they moved aggressively into Ukraine if the lights go out in Frankfurt. WW III.
“Tomorrow hopes that we learned something from yesterday.” - John Wayne
Here’s the problem: Putin will likely be replaced by someone far worse if he’s removed.
The effect of a deployment of Polish troops into Western Ukraine with German and NATO backing would be to make manifest a de factor NATO security guarantee to Ukraine, in whole or in part. That would sharply limit Russia's options and military pressure against Ukraine while also providing assurance to NATO's vulnerable flank further to the south. And Russia could also be warned against a cut off of energy supplies to Europe. With a large chunk of Russia's army chewed to bits by the Ukrainians, they are now vulnerable to that kind of pressure.
No small part of Putin's effectiveness against Europe is that he is essentially a criminal. Europe's natural response as a civilized society to demands and menaces is engagement and appeasement. After all, that avoids the expense and risks of a military buildup and counter-threats. Against a civilized opponent, that would work, but it has only incited Putin's aggressive criminality -- to Europe's bafflement and distress. Poland at least has been clear-eyed about Russia and Putin.
Perhaps. But the argument against that is that under Putin, Russia tried and failed at autocratic government and a national strategy of imperial expansionism, and that with a broken army, declining population, and deteriorating industrial base, the effort cannot be repeated. In short, after Putin, Russia will likely have neither the appetite nor the means to continue to be the menace that Putin has been.
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