Russian-German relations are at their lowest point in the 30 years that have passed since the reunification of the two German states – this is the main idea of experts commenting on the current state of affairs in the international arena.
On the whole, they are right. Moreover, the circumstances and details of what is happening look extremely strange and make us look for subtexts and undercurrents hidden from the public eye.
The mysteriousness of current events is aggravated by the processes of the very recent past – the middle of the decade, when Russia became the target of a well-organized attack from the West. Germany, being the European leader, took the most active and loud part in this.
But the processes of that time were quite transparent in their goals and logic. The collective West, which by the beginning of the 2010s faced crisis and threats to its global hegemony, decided to act proactively and repeat the combination successfully implemented during the collapse of the USSR. The task was to use the events in Ukraine to plunge Russia into a large-scale socio-economic and state-political crisis, achieve its complete geopolitical surrender and take control of its resources, redistributing in their favor.
The West never used the toughest and most painful levers of pressure on Moscow (the same disconnection from SWIFT). First of all, of course, it felt sorry for itself, since such measures would have a very serious return. Well, and, apparently, it was considered: what was used would be enough to bring down Russia and the Kremlin.
The result is known: Russia not only survived – it regained the status of a great power, and the collective West as a consolidated subject of world politics actually ceased to exist, simply crumbling into many separate players. Nowadays there are much more focused on internal contradictions and conflicts that multiply and become bitter before our eyes.
By the way, then, in 2016-2017, Germany was the first to realize the failure of the campaign against Russia and began to return relations with Moscow to the channel of pragmatic cooperation. The climax was the Nord Stream-2 project, in the implementation of which the German economy as a whole and its industry in particular are extremely interested.
And then suddenly – really suddenly – Berlin staged an anti-Russian hysteria around Alexei Navalny, which in its intensity and delusional almost overshadows the most outstanding examples of this genre from 2014-2015. Moreover, now this is precisely the German initiative, where the rest of the West performs along the lines and without much enthusiasm.
It would seem that the goal is obvious – the rejection of Nord Stream-2, which Washington has long been seeking from Berlin. It could be assumed that the Americans put pressure on Germany, which was gradually slipping out of their submission in recent years.
However, nothing of the kind happens. Moreover, the exact opposite is taking place – the Germans are promoting anti-Russian rhetoric, while consistently and carefully removing the gas pipeline under construction from the blow.
Another confirmation of this was Alexei Navalny’s interview to the magazine Der Spiegel, where, on the one hand, he carried enchanting nonsense accusing Putin personally of his own poisoning, and on the other, he clearly spoke out in defense of Nord Stream-2 in the style of “sanctions against Russia meaningless”.
So what could be the explanation for this seemingly very contradictory position?
The first version is the simplest: Germany decided to single-handedly try to reproduce the combination of the mid-2010s in the hope of a coup in Russia and the coming to power of its protege, in which the gas pipeline will be useful.
To be honest, this idea looks unconvincing because it means that Berlin has not learned any lessons from the events of the very recent past. Moreover, now Russia is in much more favorable conditions than then, and it would be extremely presumptuous to count on its collapse. It is hardly worth underestimating the German leadership so much.
The second version is conspiracy theory: everything that happens is a production, and with the participation of Moscow.
Germany is indeed in the process of regaining its own sovereignty and freeing itself from American control. However, it is still far from the final victory. Berlin is under severe pressure from overseas, and itself is torn apart by contradictions within the elites, in which nationally oriented and globalist-pro-American forces clashed. The latter used Navalny to strike a blow at Nord Stream-2. And the first, in order to protect the gas pipeline, did not refute all this (because they are more expensive for themselves), but intercepted the agenda and brought it to the point of absurdity, at the same time covering the project from closing.
And Moscow, which unusually sharply responds to all German attacks (before, even in the most acute situations, openly pacifying rhetoric dominated on its part), thus plays along with “our” Germans.
And, finally, the third version: everything happens in earnest. On the one hand, Germany (and the West as a whole) intends to develop strategic economic cooperation with Russia in important areas for itself, and on the other, in the political and ideological sphere, it is tightly cutting it off from itself.
By the way, there is a similar precedent in the relatively recent past. It’s about the Cold War. But there is an important point: then such a structure was built in an established and stable global system, where the rules were accepted by all parties. One can only guess what the same strategy will turn out to be in a world falling apart. There is a suspicion that nothing good.
Irina Alksnis, RIA