So that Gerhard Schröder could get a job at Gazprom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der#Relation...

> In 2022, it was reported that Schroeder was paid nearly $1 million per year by Russian energy companies.

Who knew sabotaging a continent’s energy policy was so affordable.

Fossil fuel executives sure as hell do.

Merkel fucked loved Russia and China for some reason we'll probably never know and that's pretty much the whole story.

I think ideology. "Green movement"

Torpedoing wind projects and investing more in gas pipelines and generators is exactly what the green movement was about.

Well Greenpeace is selling gas so it seems to be yes.

What an utterly intellectually bankrupt way of framing the sale of an 85% renewable energy mix.

> Since 2011 Green Planet Energy has been selling the proWindgas product which was initially 100% imported fossil gas, and the company promised a gradual increase in the proportion of hydrogen generated from excess renewable energy.[5] As of 2020 the share of hydrogen mostly oscillated below 1%.[6] > Sales of 99% fossil gas presented as “eco-gas” have been criticized as contradictory[7][8] as well as "greenwashing" of Russian gas.

cf: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Planet_Energy

What an utterly bankrupt way of framing the sale of 99% gas as a renewable energy mix.

Closer to the politician than the cat.

Question: could Russian disinformation have played a role in germanys policy here? Perhaps they were pushing anti nuclear viewpoints for a decade leading up to this?

To be clear, I have zero evidence either way, I’m just curious how large an effect these campaigns have had on public policy across the world

I wouldn’t use that word. Germany made choices, and believed in a way that Russia could be pulled westward. Russia intended to use this belief to its own advantage at Western Europe’s expense. People pointed this out, but German politicians shouted that down as cold war thinking.

I think you're right. The anti-nuclear activists of the 20th century focused as much on nuclear weapons as nuclear energy, frequently conflating the two. Furthermore these activists were almost always left wing and had obvious affinity for their idealized vision of what the Soviet Union was. I think the Soviets fomented anti-nuclear sentiment in the west during the Cold War to give themselves an edge in the nuclear arms buildup.

Of course, everyone is a booster for their own cause.

The angles of attack range from the top-down to the grass roots. There are tactics for each (e.g. corrupting state leaders vs controlling mass media narratives).

> Question: could Russian disinformation have played a role in germanys policy here?

As a German, no, that was quite voluntary. People like me completely agreed. I only woke up on 24 February. I'm from East Germany, speak some Russian, and have been to Russia a few times, and to Ukraine too, for months actually. I did not care about the Krim annexation either. I think because it was peaceful, and because I did not see Ukraine and its government in any better light than the Russian one. The corruption problem was (is? no idea now) real, and some really bad and shady stuff happened in Ukraine.

The reason I turned is all because of the behavior and the atrocities of Russia. My opinion does not require a "good" Ukraine, so arguments like "but... corruption" (for Ukraine) don't matter any more. To me, having seen the incredible modernization of Russia - supported almost completely by the West and a little bit from Asia, not self-made, and then Putin's declarations about "war with the West" was one of the things that turned me. You owe the "evil West" BIG TIME! I actually have friends who have done business in Russia since the 1990s, so I've followed along the stories passively and still do.

No, you cannot blame Russia for what we Germans thought and did before this war. I was for Nord Stream 2, I was outraged about US interference when they pressured us to stop the project, I was outraged when Trump made his comments. This was not because of any "propaganda", that was my own 100% self-made opinion. I only read some mainstream news portal headlines to begin with, so I'm not exposed to anything like those people in some Telegram channels, or Stammtisch discussions in some places in East Germany (I moved out of East Germany - and in the end to the US for a long time - not long after reunification).

You need to understand a lot of Germans, especially East Germans of course, did not fear Russia but saw them as a true partner. Putin spoke in the Bundestag in a "historic speech"! They were mostly interesting to do business with. They needed so much from us (and got it), and we had good use for their oil and gas and metals and other things. Business was really good, for both sides! We ignored Russian aggressive moves with mostly just some eye-rolling - "that's just how they are" but did not think much of it.

Now, I see that Russian society as a whole has a big problem. It's very far from only Putin being responsible. If they don't lose very hard they may develop like Germany after WWI, thinking they only lost because of "Dolchstoßlegende" (stab in the back myth - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth). I want us to ignore the nuclear threats and to sent Leopard tanks and Marders. Biden too seems a bit afraid, e.g. limiting rockets for HIMARs to the shortest range "to not provoke Putin".

I find this strange, if the West wants Ukraine to win Putin will be very "provoked". What kind of conflict is this when the enemy gets to decide which weapons out side is allowed to use? Essentially, Putin now has veto power over what weapons the West sends. I hope there is more going on underneath the surface, because this does not make sense.

Maybe they want Putin to invest more and more and grind Russia down slowly? Losing too quickly would leave Russia with too much left? Of course, the cost of such a strategy would be borne by the Ukrainians, who pay in blood. They may agree though, I don't know, because only a big loos for Russia would give them real peace instead of just a pause. Just my speculations about why we hear (tome) flimsy excuses instead of seeing more done to let Ukraine win more quickly.

Ok so you explained your love affair with Russia. Thank you for that, very insightful and courageous.

But why the hate of nuclear? Was there a lot of propaganda in the media how dangerous it is? I really don’t understand it. It gives clean energy independence almost for free!

The Chernobyl disaster was a big part of it. I wasn't old enough back then, but my parents told me how people were told to not play outside with the children, not to drink milk, eat things and so on. No one really knew what was going on. That fear has always been a big part of the anti-nuclear movement here in Germany.

Germans particularly have a lot of good reason to dislike nuclear weapons. If the Soviet Union had ever sent tanks through the Fulda Gap, NATO would have dropped a lot of tactical nukes on Germany to stop it. They had plans for it all drawn up, weapon systems invented specifically for this, etc. NATO and the Soviets were both planning to actually continue fighting through a nuclear war. Those in power viewed a nuclear WW3 as a salvageable situation from which one side might emerge victorious, not the utter end of the world. Germans who called the planned nuclear battlefield their home obviously weren't enamored with this idea.

But I think Cold War era anti-nuclear activists exploited this rational fear of nuclear weapons to vilify nuclear power as well, to weaken the capitalist West which they almost universally opposed.

This is beyond illogical.

Funny enough, having nuclear weapons is the best way BAR NONE to avoid becoming a nuclear (or any other kind of) battlefield.

There were a ton of nuclear weapons in Germany, that didn't belong to Germany, and I think those nukes ultimately dissuaded the feared war. It's easy to see in hindsight that there was no war, but at the time the situation seemed very dangerous.

Thanks for the perspective from east side of the wall.

It was not voted on directly. Like removal of Deutschmark under Köhl, it was done by those governing without direct vote. The people didn't react, so you get what you tolerate.

If you are talking about reunification, we, the East Germans, definitely overwhelmingly wanted it. There was no need for a referendum, I will make that claim.

Remaining blocked off by not having any real money (GDR money was useless! Exchange rates, if you could exchange at all, were astronomical when you add the fact that East Germans had very little of even our own money to begin with), after we finally got the wall down and saw in brief visits to the West, getting Begrüßungsgeld (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begr%C3%BC%C3%9Fungsgeld), now we should stay isolated in East Germany?

Without reunification everybody who could would have moved to the West. Even so that movement existed even after reunification, but it was a lot less than it would have been without reunification.

Oh, to clarify -Reunification was needed. I paid that payroll tax in the 1990s!

Russian energy dependence was not voted on. Green (reduce nuke and coal) was enabled by votes for those people.

I think euro would not have been voted in by German people, if they were allowed to vote on d-mark or euro in 1997.

>Maybe they want Putin to invest more and more and grind Russia down slowly? Losing too quickly would leave Russia with too much left? Of course, the cost of such a strategy would be borne by the Ukrainians, who pay in blood.

I think this has been the conventional wisdom for a while. One thing I ask people who are vociferous in their support of Ukraine (and our paying for that support) is, how is this going to end?

Russia quietly bleeds out and overthrows Putin? Is that realistic? If Putin is a madman dictator, do you really think he'll just whimper and disappear? It seems necessary that a negotiation take place at some point, and that negotiation result in lost territory for Ukraine. It's not a question of justice, but practicality.

Russia has a history of throwing out leaders after failed wars. On one hand Putin appears to have a fairly tight grip on power right now, but it doesn't take much to actually execute a coup. A small group of of participants to capture or kill him, and maybe one or two handshake agreements with one of the many security or military forces might be enough. There is a reason Putin has been spending most of this war in his bunker after all. It is certainly not because he fears attacks from Ukraine. He know this war has greatly eroded his leverage over the oligarchs and as such he is acting accordingly.

Of course it is hard to even put a probability on something like this happening, but I think most folks are underestimating the odds. It is one of those things that feels very unlikely to happen, until it actually happens.

However, I do think that the highest probability outcome is Ukraine and Russia end up roughly where they were before the invasion, perhaps with slightly different boundaries. If you were not aware Russia and Ukraine have been at war for 8 years. For most of the years, it was effectively a stalemate, with a handful skirmishes to remind each other of the others presence. And the rest of the world for the most part carried on with business as usual. If feel like this is the most likely scenario, and if this is where we end up, I think it was 100% worth the cost as it means Ukraine maintains self-determination and Russia likely learns a really hard lesson regarding its Imperialistic ambitions.

The result will not be just "lost territory" it's hundred thousands people left in Russian bondage. And that will not be the end of it - Putin will be back for more in a year or two. There can be no peace as long as his regime is in power and as long as russians cling to a fantasy of living in an empire. I don't know how realistic is to bleed Russia, but fighting it now is only viable option, there is nothing else.

I am Brazillian but been following a lot of the events in Europe for a while.

Something a lot people miss, is why Russia is doing what they are doing, many assume they just want to conquer Ukraine "just because", or that it is a purely cultural issue, or that it is Putin personal design.

The major point of contention here is that USA and allies (including NATO and the non-NATO members of Five Eyes) have proven themselves to be very aggressive, there are repeated claims that NATO is defensive, yet a lot of the wars in the past 25 years were started by USA or allies in first place.

So first thing is, yes, Russia has reason to fear USA.

The other problem here is strategic and geographic: Russia border is enormous and in the middle of plains, driving across the border with tanks and reaching Moscow and other major population centers right now is something trivial to do, Russia still didn't recovered properly from WW2 and don't have the manpower to defend such huge border from a land invasion.

When Putin says he is defending Russia survival, he is speaking that literally, Russia border is a major vulnerability.

There are basically three "good" solutions for this problem:

1. Have NATO disbanded or made much smaller. Or join NATO in first place. It is obvious this won't happen and Russia doesn't have the means to make it happen.

2. Conquer surrounding countries until they reach the mountains, that are easier to defend. This of course would result in massive negative repercussions, also a lot of countries that Russia would need to conquer for this joined NATO.

3. Convince somehow the countries between Russia and the mountains, to be neutral and not accept NATO inside them. This way if NATO decided to invade Russia by land, there would be time to mount defenses.

----

Russia was basically attempting to do the solution 3 using diplomacy. USA did their best to prevent that, because it would be a victory for Russia and a clear loss from USA point of view. Russia then decided that the option left was force option 3. Attack Ukraine and force them to be neutral.

It ALMOST worked, but the peace talks in march ended being cancelled by the Ukranian side.

So plan became a mix of 2 and 3, conquer some parts of Ukraine and keep trying to convince some "Neutrality" peace.

----

The problem now of trying to help Ukraine win, for example by giving them tanks as you suggested, is that option 3 would be gone, and Russia would see themselves forced to use option 2. Russia not declaring war and using "special operation" is meaningful, they are STILL trying to do things semi-diplomatically, but as soon it becomes clear this is impossible, things will be very ugly.

Also Russia has a time limit here, their population is still declining for various reasons (including a cycle where each generation that is descendants of WW2 adults are smaller than the others, Russia demography graph look "wavy" because of this). They must solve the problem of the massive hard to defend border with NATO "now", thus they will get more and more desperate, the next generations will be too small population-wise to defend that border effectively.

----

If NATO never had expanded right up the border with Russia, all this would probably been avoided. Yes I know people in the countries that border Russia that joined NATO are happy with NATO and wanted to join, but this doesn't change the fact that NATO members been attacking other countries left and right, and Russia thus has all the right to be terrified of NATO on their giant flat plains border.

Still, NATO did. So what is left now? Ideally NATO should pull back with the condition Russia pull back too, but I think the chance of this happening is close to zero.

What will most likely happen is Russia will keep trying to secure their border by any mean necessary. For NATO this is in a sense a golden opportunity, it means they can keep Russia busy there and grinding themselves to dust as they try to get defensible borders.

But for me that is in Brazil, and I am not pro-Russia, neither pro-USA, I think this is extremely dangerous, because eventually there might be a situation, where the only way for Russia to be safe, is if they turn the the area between their border and the mountains into a wasteland hard to cross, and decide to bomb the shit out of the people there until all that is left is craters and rubble that can be used for defensive purposes.

I see Ukranians having only these paths:

1. Somehow, winning the war without getting bombed to oblivion. (I think the chance of this working is minuscle and not worth attempting for real).

2. Fighting to win and get utterly annihilated eventually, with Russia making sure the country becomes a barrier between NATO and Moscow (unless Russia conquers all of Ukraine first).

3. Cutting their losses, giving Russia some territory that moves the border away from Moscow, and pledging to not help NATO invade Russia in the future.

EDIT: forgot option 4 here, because it is unthinkable, but could happen: Ukraine attempts to win the war because it convinced other countries to actually help them beat Russia, for example with actual boots on the ground... but this would turn into WW3, in this scenario everyone loses.

> So first thing is, yes, Russia has reason to fear USA.

> The other problem here is strategic and geographic: Russia border is enormous and in the middle of plains, driving across the border with tanks and reaching Moscow and other major population centers right now is something trivial to do, Russia still didn't recovered properly from WW2 and don't have the manpower to defend such huge border from a land invasion.

If every country in the world besides Russia joined NATO surrounding it completely, we would still never invade Russia because they have 1500 thermonuclear warheads! We are literally too afraid to even put our troops in Ukraine because of the threat that we all end up dead in nuclear war. Please give me 1 good reason for invading Russia that is worth the risk of all of us dying in the nuclear relation.

> It ALMOST worked, but the peace talks in march ended being cancelled by the Ukrainian side.

This is a Russian talking point that has been getting spread around the internet lately. Those talks failed because Putin refused to negotiate on a few key items, and it quickly became apparent that he was trying to use those talks to buy time to regroup his forces after the initial invasion. But lately, right wing leaning news sources are now taking a quote from Boris Johnson out of context to try and frame the failure of those talks as some Western conspiracy to prolong the war.

Fascinating how a large portion of germans were enamoured with a murderous corrupt dictator yet they speak with disgust about peaceful east european allies and look down on them and sanction their economies at first signs of dissent. Truly one for science books. Is it because of the age old “dream” of sharing east europe with russia? If so, east europe shouldnt sit idle. It should respond in kin.

> they speak with disgust about peaceful east european allies and look down on them and sanction their economies at first signs of dissent

Wow this is such a bad comment. I will even be so bold and call it outright lies.

You seem to be talking about Hungary. A country that I actually really like, I was there in my (East German) youth three times, once on vacation with my parents, twice in youth camps, an East German group among Hungarian kids.

Hungary even then was very much oriented towards the West and very modern. Even the ice cream selection was an order of magnitude better than in East Germany, never mind that one could buy Western music and magazines. I loved the country. I loved the food. Well, maybe not some parts of the rooster in my soup.

The problem with Hungary's government now is that they are going down a path of "removing" any opposition and have moved towards autocracy. If they remained a democracy they could have whatever opinion they want. The problem is not their stance towards sanctions, for example, but that they are no longer a democracy.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20220909IP...

That is not a German opinion, as you can see.

It's possible. They also push anti-fracking campaigns.

Being "green".

Not just that. Keeping east europe under developed and thus reliant on “eu funding” coupled with corruption and sheer incompetence.

Yeah, probably. The moment Germans started on EU level to push natural gas (which burns into co2) as green and push zero emission nuclear as not green, I stopped believing they are more than Russian puppets or useful idiots.