Posted on 04/13/2022 12:05:39 AM PDT by Zhang Fei
Pressure was mounting on Germany to up its game over the war in Ukraine on Tuesday as Kyiv snubbed the country's president and Chancellor Olaf Scholz was accused of a weak response to the crisis.
On a visit to Poland, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier admitted he had offered to visit Ukraine with other EU leaders, but Kyiv had told him he was not welcome right now.
"I was prepared to do this, but apparently, and I must take note of this, this was not wanted in Kyiv," Steinmeier told reporters.
Steinmeier, a former foreign minister, has faced growing criticism since Russia invaded Ukraine in February for his years-long detente policy towards Moscow.
Scholz, meanwhile, was being panned for his own failure to visit Kyiv, as well as his hesitancy over providing heavy weapons to help Ukraine resist Russia's invasion.
In the first trip by a high-level German government delegation since the start of the conflict, three top politicians were due to travel to Ukraine on Tuesday, a source told AFP.
Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann of the liberal FDP, Michael Roth of Scholz's Social Democrats and Anton Hofreiter of the Greens were meeting members of the Ukrainian parliament in the west of the country, the source said, confirming a report in Der Spiegel magazine.
But following visits by several other leaders in recent days, including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, critics have asked why Scholz himself is not making the trip. 'Strong signal'
While Johnson was "walking side by side with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv" on Saturday, "Scholz was waving at an election campaign rally in Luebeck" ahead of an upcoming regional vote, the Bild daily noted.
The opposition CDU has urged Scholz to "get an idea of the situation on the ground".
(Excerpt) Read more at france24.com ...
Ukraine ping
Like Moscow Joe, Olaf Scholz has talked a good game about helping Ukraine while getting things done in slow motion. Has he been paid off by Putin, or is he looking for the same deal predecessor SPD chief, Nord Stream advocate and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder received from the Putin, once he left office?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der#Relationship_with_Russian_companies
Dear Germany...Time to approve Nord Stream 2
Maybe he doesn’t want his economy to shut down.
I’m going to guess the Ukranians opened the cases of Strela-2s the Germans sent over...
Here is Anders Östlund writing a heart-felt thread about what sort of creature Steinmeier is.
https://twitter.com/andersostlund/status/1514141398517301253
I guess the simplest explanation is the most probable one. Scholz is unwilling to accept the economic and perhaps political damage from a gas cutoff. Germany believes that being too helpful to Ukraine might lead Putin to cut the gas and hopes that aid from others will be enough to blead the Russian army into impotence.
If Putin stops or is stopped to the east of NATOs border then Germany can eventually return to trading fairly freely with Russia and come out of this as just a slightly more rearmed and less pacifistic version of its pre Ukrainian war self.
Personally I think this is a foolish fantasy. Putin intended to take all of Ukraine, some of Moldova, all of the 3 Baltic states and perhaps half of Poland. After every successful slice (if any) he will reevaluate the West’s political leadership and decide if he can continue.
Putin’s disastrous miscalculations may have been enough to force him to stop with a piece of Ukraine, but the consequences of his continuing are so monumental that the damage to Germany’s economy from a natural gas cutoff pale by comparison.
Don’t think it even needs to go that far to make them hate him. Germany sent over Strela-2s that were so old they either won’t work or will explode on launch (not deliberate sabotage, this is a known problem when the Strela rocket motor gets old and starts decaying). Reports have leaked out from Germany that these things were stored so badly that soldiers loading them from bunkers for shipment to Ukraine had to wear respirators and mold protection gear, they were that badly stored. This after they’d been retired from German service circa 2015 because they were either not working or... exploded on launch.
Yeah, I’d be considering that a hostile act.
I disagree with you on what Putin’s primary war aims were, but I do want to point out that the German government had painted themselves into a corner prior to the war, they just didn’t realize it. They had committed to dismantling their nuclear power plants (which to be fair, the Germans were oddly bad about designing and running) and reducing their coal plants in favor of ‘renewables’ and buying more nuclear generated electricity from France, plus natural gas generating plants. All to virtue signal about being committed to green energy.
Then the war happened.
It is politically impossible at this time for the German government to walk back the decommissioning of their nuclear plants or slow down the coal plant decommissioning program. There was just too much popular support for it. Renewables and French energy at the current state of development won’t keep the heat on in winter or the German factories going in summer without Russian gas.
They painted themselves into a corner. And everyone knows it.
Maybe the Ukes remember the last time the Germans sauntered in.
You know, with Stukas and panzers?
And they called Trump stupid.
Blockheads.
L
Thanks Zhang Fei.
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