FRANKFURT, Germany —
Germany's new government faced pressure Sunday to take a firmer stance against Russia, after
a German navy chief's pro-Moscow remarks angered Kyiv and exasperation grows with
Berlin's fence-sitting in the Ukraine crisis.
اضافة اعلان
After a week of frantic diplomacy that
included a visit to Berlin by US Secretary of State
Antony Blinken, Chancellor
Olaf Scholz's government found itself scrambling at the weekend to reassure
Kyiv of its support in the face of a feared Russian invasion.
The spat was triggered by German navy chief
Kay-Achim Schoenbach's musings that it was "nonsense" to think Russia
was about to march on Ukraine and that President
Vladimir Putin deserves
respect.
Schoenbach resigned late Saturday, but the
damage was done.
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba
summoned the German ambassador and accused Berlin of "encouraging"
Putin to attack Ukraine.
Scholz on Sunday warned again of "high
costs" should Russia attack, in an interview with the Sueddeutsche
newspaper.
But with trademark caution, he also called
for "wisdom" in considering sanctions and "the consequences they
would have for us".
Seeking to soothe tensions, Blinken said he
had "no doubts" that Germany shared Washington's concerns and was
maintaining a united front with NATO on Ukraine.
Test for Scholz
The Ukraine crisis is the first major test
for Social Democrat Scholz, who took over from veteran leader Angela Merkel
last month.
His coalition government of the center-left
SPD, the Greens and the pro-business FDP, has vowed "dialogue and
toughness" with Russia.
But it has struggled to overcome internal
divisions and craft a unified response on how to deal with an emboldened
Moscow.
The Handelsblatt financial daily, noting
that German politicians' tendency to "understand Russia" remains
alive and well, asked: "Where is the line between a willingness to engage
in dialogue, and strategic naiveté?"
Arming Ukraine
A key bone of
contention between Germany and Western allies is Berlin's refusal to send
weapons to
Ukraine.
The United States, Britain and Baltic states
have already agreed to send weapons, including anti-tank and anti-aircraft
missiles.
Germany is traditionally reluctant to get
involved in military conflict, traumatized by its past as an instigator of two
World Wars, and Scholz's government claims arming Ukraine would only inflame
tensions.
But Ukraine's Kuleba said Germany's
ambiguous stance does not match "the current security situation", and
urged Berlin to "stop undermining unity" among Kyiv's allies.
Even in Germany, some have called for a
rethink.
Henning Otte, a lawmaker from the
center-right CDU opposition party, told the Bild daily last week that if
Ukraine is asking for weapons to fend off a possible attack, "we must not
reject this request".
Nord Stream 2 leverage
Another sore point in the Ukraine crisis is
the contentious Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which has split the new cabinet in
Berlin.
The completed pipeline, currently awaiting
German regulatory approval, is set to double Russian gas supplies to Germany.
The previous Merkel-led government always
insisted the pipeline was a purely commercial project -- irritating allies who
fear the pipeline will give Russia too much leverage over
European energy.
While Scholz has echoed Merkel's line on the
"private sector project", his Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock,
from the Greens, is a known opponent of Nord Stream 2.
But in a sign that Scholz's position may be
hardening, he reiterated last week that he stood by a German-US deal not to
allow Moscow to use the pipeline as a weapon and that when it comes to
sanctions, "everything" is on the table.
Jana Puglierin of the European Council on
Foreign Relations think-tank, said she hoped Scholz's words would bring
"more coherence to the German debate and reassure partners abroad who had
started to see Germany as the West's weak link".
'Correct course'
Scholz's SPD has a "nostalgic reflex"
when it comes to Russia, Die Zeit weekly recently noted, harking back to ex-SPD
chancellor Willy Brandt and his "Ostpolitik" policy of rapprochement
with the east in the 1970s.
In an open letter in Die Zeit earlier this
month, 73 Eastern Europe and security experts urged Berlin to end its
"special treatment" of Russia and correct course.
Germany has been watching the Kremlin's
actions "critically but largely inactively for three decades", they
wrote. Now, "Germany must act".
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