I would like to reflect a little more in detail on the history of the peace process, as Deralla mentioned, from the occupation of Crimea, the hesitation, the delay, the opportunity to address the German role, it is very important to understand what were the mistakes of the Western countries, crucial for shaping the lessons learned from this process, stressed Marion Kraske, a political analyst and author from Germany in the first Panel: Resistance, Peace, and the New Axis of Autocracy  at the online conference on the topic “Ukraine and the World: Resisting Aggression, Defeating Authoritarianism”.

“I’ll go back to 2014, the occupation of Crimea, the German government’s reactions, especially the German government’s, brought us to where we are now. The German government has a short memory, Chancellor Merkel was even pushing for Nord Stream, the gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, and even gave an interview in 2022, saying that she saw the problem with the occupation and the violation of international law, but she indicated that she wanted ‘connection through trade’, not change through trade, but connection through trade, and she thought that was a good decision at the time, with implications for the economy. The political leadership wanted cheap gas from Putin, and that was the main focus at that time,” says Kraske.

She considers this a huge historical mistake with catastrophic consequences that led to the current situation.

-This was very counterproductive, and apparently Putin felt empowered by this lack of reaction, from Germany, but also from the rest of Europe, and interpreted it as a green light for further action to occupy Ukraine,” she said.

“As a result, Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, and for the third year we see very weak and uncoordinated action in the West, including from the Biden administration. In Germany it has become obvious that there is a lack of understanding of the Russian invasion, there were several statements by Chancellor Scholz, who spoke of Russia’s territorial goals, and not that it was about a regime, although Moscow made it clear that it was about the destruction of an entire nation.

I think it was a complete misunderstanding of the German Chancellor, who at that time formulated a concept of changing the weather, but without a strict commitment to implementation, I think this is very serious, we have something crucial, on a piece of paper that was not incorporated into our foreign policy. And it led us to strategic mistakes (e.g. we did not prepare militarily for these changes, our army did not have a strategy), and on the other hand we did not provide adequate support to Ukraine.

“We are witnessing a complete strategic failure by Germany, and we did not formulate strategic goals, there was an open discussion that Germany would support Ukraine as much as necessary, which says nothing. The most important goal was not formulated, that we will support Ukraine and everything that is necessary for it to win. That is the difference. If we are not clear with the analyses, in formulating strategies, how can we act adequately. This should be known, and that Scholz blocked the government from delivering defense systems, such as Taurus, to Ukraine, which was discussed for months. Scholz spoke more about possible civilian casualties in Russia than about actual civilian casualties in Ukraine. For the last 3 years, we have witnessed that the German discourse was, more or less, dominated by the Russian perception and perspective, What will Putin say, what will Putin do, were the dominant narratives in the German political discourse,” pointed Kraske.

Kraske says that some of Germany’s leading military experts are criticizing Scholz for his ineffective support for Ukraine that would have helped Ukraine win the war. We didn’t deliver enough, she stressed.

“The latest election results in Germany have shown that Scholz is not perceived as a leader, especially when it comes to the security of Germany and Europe. That’s why he has massively lost credibility and reputation. That’s why it’s now very obvious that Macron and Starmer (France and Great Britain) have intensified and strengthened the momentum and have taken the lead in recent weeks, especially, right, after that disgusting speech by J.D. Vance at the Munich Security Conference, where it became clear that the end of US security guarantees for Europe is over.

Now we see that this coalition also includes: Poland, Denmark, Finland, Estonia… but interestingly not Germany. This is a lesson that the new German government needs to learn. “I don’t know if you noticed, Mr. Scholz was in the third row at the London Summit. Can you imagine Angela Merkel standing in the third row? Of course not. This is the result of three years of delay and uncertainty that came from Mr. Scholz,” Kraske said.

I sincerely hope that with the new Chancellor Merz, Germany will return to this important moment as a serious partner on the international stage, emphasized Marion Kraske.

Camera and editing: Arian Mehmeti

Photo: B. Tahiri/ CIVIL