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Russia seems to get away with the Navalny case, again. Putin’s empire is too powerful for Germany to do anything. | A column by Gerhard Spörl.
If someone wants to murder another person, they will be brought to justice and sentenced. So it is in real life. If the Russian secret service attacks in London or the Tiergarten, or if it poisons Alexej Navalny, it is more difficult to bring the perpetrators to justice and prosecute their clients, even if there is a full chain of evidence. What do you do then?
Check your options. You are looking for allies for political action. You look around for precedents. An attempt is made to turn moral outrage into politics. However, the practical approach is quite difficult. The criterion is: it has to hurt, Vladimir Putin should have to reflect. At the same time, as we know, illusions are prohibited, especially when it comes to Russia.
Ignore is no longer possible
But too much has happened to ignore the poison attack. The explanations that can be heard from Moscow each time are too banal to be satisfied. Personally, it still amazes me that a soldier by the grace of Putin shot down an airliner over eastern Ukraine. That was on July 17, 2014, almost 300 people died, including 80 children.
Also Syria. Libya. The annexation of Crimea. The guerrilla war in eastern Ukraine. Cyber attacks. Preferred treatment for right-wing extremists. Tanks are being raised in Belarus. Without backing, Alexander Lukashenko does nothing else. Putin seizes every opportunity to develop his destructive power. He doesn’t care what the people of Berlin, London or Paris think. If necessary, he sends his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, the Zen master of cynicism who would be entertaining if he did not justify what he cannot justify.
Alexander Navalny: Maybe he thought his celebrities were protecting him. (Source: imago images)
Alexei Navalny is a brave man. He often ended up in jail. You will not be intimidated. Maybe he thought his celebrities were protecting him. He has been in a coma for days at the Charité.
1,230 kilometers of ongoing dispute
What are the options? In an interview with “Bild am Sonntag”, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas carefully scanned the horizon. If there are sanctions against the authors and perpetrators, not only from Germany, but as a European initiative, he says. Navalny’s assassination attempt also violates international order, which is established in the Charter of the United Nations or the OSCE.
There is also Nordstream 2, the nearly completed new pipeline, laid in two lines at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, 1,230 kilometers long. 55 billion cubic meters of gas will flow directly to Germany and reach Lubmin, near Greifswald. It can start from January 2021. It could.
Construction began in 2011. Crimea was not yet occupied, the Arab Spring was pending, and the war in Syria was just beginning. It was only under the influence of world politics that Nordstream 2 became a political problem, especially for the US It threatens Germany with sanctions if the last kilometers of the pipeline are completed. Donald Trump, in particular, finds words of contempt for the fact that Germany, on the one hand, becomes dependent on Russian oil and gas and, on the other, wants to be protected militarily from Russia.
The accusation is not entirely out of nowhere. Germany already gets about 40 percent of its natural gas supply from Russia. With Nordstream 2 that’s no less, of course. What to do?
Norbert Röttgen: Foreign politician calls for Nordstream 2 to stop (Source: Klaus W. Schmidt / imago images)
Norbert Röttgen, the CDU’s chancellor candidate, demands that the Merkel government detain Nordstream 2. Manfred Weber, the CSU’s European politician, means the same thing, only he phrased it with more caution in the “Spiegel interview. “:” The end of Nordstream 2 should no longer be ruled out. “
The tendency to radical consequences grows with distance from the government. That’s the way it is. Röttgen and Weber could sharpen their argument by saying that Germany must think primarily about its energy supply because we have become dependent on Russia. Don’t do it and that speaks against you.
They do what they want
Unfortunately, the world is full of unsavory heads of state and government, which sadly cannot be ignored. Dealing with them is as unpleasant as it is necessary. China: ruthless power politics in the South China Sea and against Hong Kong. Saudi Arabia oppresses women, makes war in Yemen, kills a journalist in its embassy. America has Trump. Russia has Putin.
They do what they want, they don’t care about the clamor in the west. They are big or important or both and we cannot damage them. And medium-sized countries like Germany have to get along with them, whether they want to or not.
The world is what it is. The moral outrage is too understandable. The reasons for wanting punishment do not decrease with the number of cases, but increase. The repercussions on pragmatism as a normal case of government action cannot be ignored: the prevailing cynicism strips it of its ideal basis.
As it is, illusions are forbidden. Maximalism is a godly wish. Often there is nothing but minimalism, however bleak it may be. Therefore, it is logical that Heiko Maas prefers to talk about European sanctions than about the end of Nordstream 2. Germany is in a dilemma: the United States here with savage threats, there Russia with its huge reserves. What do you do then?
Save time. If things go well, Donald Trump will cease to be president as of November 3 and the pipeline will be completed. But Putin is there and will continue to be there. The European Union should impose sanctions on both the perpetrators and the perpetrators of the attack on Alexei Navalny. That is the minimum, because more is not possible, what a shame.
