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I shifted the dialog again to the conflict, which he condemned but in addition certified.
“Now we have this example, which I’ve to say isn’t just one-sided,” he stated.
I had heard this so much in Germany — “it’s not one-sided” — not least amongst my very own mother and father’ mates. The concept that NATO had been cornering Russia after the reunification of Germany and Europe was not all that unusual in Germany earlier than the conflict.
Russia-Ukraine Warfare: Key Developments
Russian oil embargo. European Union nations are prone to approve a phased embargo on Russian oil, sealing a long-postponed measure that has divided the bloc’s members and highlighted their dependence on Russian vitality sources. E.U. ambassadors count on to present their ultimate approval by the tip of the week, officers stated.
Even now, with preventing raging, a few of Mr. Schröder’s views, about the necessity to give Mr. Putin a option to save face, are overtly voiced. My ophthalmologist just lately informed me, “Let’s give him what he wants, for God’s sake, so we will finish this conflict.”
Germany’s relationship with Russia is difficult, rooted each in centuries of cultural alternate and a traumatic historical past of conflict, which contributed to a Russia coverage that has alternately been described as romantic blindness or open-eyed appeasement.
In Mr. Schröder’s workplace, prominently framed, is a birthday letter from the revered former chancellor Helmut Schmidt, one other Social Democrat, dated April 4, 2014, lower than two months after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, praising Mr. Schröder’s legacy as chancellor, not least for “demonstrating understanding of the wants of our highly effective neighbor Russia.”
The day earlier than my article got here out, I had one final cellphone name with Mr. Schröder to run by some factual questions. Earlier than we hung up, I informed him that this might not be a puff piece.
“You might be essential so long as you’re truthful,” he stated.
When the article was revealed on-line on April 23, it was picked up by each main German information outlet. The reactions had been swift.
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