October 2020 The German Times • Politics 3 PICTURE ALLIANCE/RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY PRESS O/TASS/DPA PICTURE ALLIANCE/RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY World War II, the Soviet Union And both also reject the prin- BY MICHAEL THUMANN was effectively a conservative ciple of extraterritorial sanctions. power seeking to maintain all that For Russia and Germany, the US here are Russians who it had conquered or controlled. At government’s attempt to use sanc- see German hospitals as that time, the Federal Republic of tions to force countries and com- Ta salvation, and there are Germany was revisionist in that, panies to toe the American line Russians who see them as a curse. although as of 1970 it accepted is an attack on their sovereignty. The family of Alexei Navalny, Germany’s external borders, it did Accordingly, they both are resist- Russia’s foremost opposition not formally accept the internal ing the ever-new rounds of US leader, arranged for him to be partition of the country. Today, sanctions concerning the Nord treated at Berlin’s Charité hospital Germany seeks to preserve the Stream 2 pipeline. after being subject to an apparent order established in 1990 along These US sanctions have forced poison attack in August. The Rus- with the Charter of Paris, while Berlin and Moscow into a com- sian government and its media Russia is engaged in persistent munity of action. Even if many empire have cast doubt upon the revolt against this order. German politicians are question- findings and diagnoses of his Moscow sees the conflicts in ing Nord Stream 2 in the wake German doctors. The Navalny Ukraine and recently in Belarus of the attack on Navalny, neither case is a burden to German-Rus- as a geopolitical struggle over the Berlin nor Moscow is prepared to sian relations, not due to Navalny, new order. Putin often ties Russian entirely abandon the natural gas but rather to his government revisionism to the suggestion that relationship they have been cul- Navalny’s struggle against the it would be desirable to establish a tivating for more than 50 years. toxins is not unrelated to the style new order in the form of arrange- Furthermore, Germany and Russia of Russian leadership that has also ments and agreements between share a common interest in sev- succeeded in poisoning the coun- the great powers à la Yalta 1945. eral disarmament treaties that try’s relationship to Germany. The The Germans, however, counter US President Donald Trump is list of unsolved attacks on opposi- by looking to replicate a different obliterating or that his country is tion figures, critical journalists and conference from that same year, abandoning. The Treaty on Open NGO representatives in Russia is a the one in San Francisco where the Skies is the latest agreement from long one: UN Charter was drafted. Great which Trump is seeking to pull - Five years ago, the prominent power agreements vs. multilater- out. Germany and Russia want to former vice-premier and liberal alism – this is the third great con- preserve it. politician Boris Nemtsov was shot trast in vision between Moscow There are ample topics on which dead just outside the walls of the and Berlin. Berlin and Moscow can converse Kremlin. Many observers talk of a new and on which they share similar - In the middle of Berlin’s Little Cold War with Russia, but this is viewpoints. The German and Rus- Tiergarten, not far from the Two men walk into a room and bring all their politics with them: a misconception. Another Cold sian governments could expand German chancellery, a Chechen German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov War is as unlikely as the establish- upon these overlappings, in the named Zelimkhan Khangoshvili ment of new Western and East- UN Security Council, in the OSCE was murdered in 2019, and the fed- ern blocs. The world is no longer as well as on a bilateral basis. eral prosecutor general is inves- dominated by two superpowers But this is scarcely possible if tigating circles of “Russian state whose ideologies collide while Russia pushes the three structural officials” as possible instigators. each establishes a sphere of influ- differences between Moscow and - The German federal govern- Getting to “da” ence according to its own agenda. Berlin to their breaking point: ment holds Russian services We live amid an unstructured contempt for law vs. respect for responsible for the cyberattacks conflict of global and regional law, revisionism vs. preservation, on the Bundestag, chancellery and German-Russian relations are poisoned, powers. The world is mired in a and great power agreements vs. foreign ministry. but common interests persist period of chaos and disorder that multilateralism. If Russian govern- The Russian government con- lacks clear orientation. ment agencies bring their hunt for tests the accusations and refuses to This discombobulated state of opposition leaders to the streets cooperate in the investigations. In This significant contrast defines their Russian counterparts than has been hacked dozens of times affairs paradoxically harbors the of Berlin or promote cyberattacks the case of Alexei Navalny, German and encumbers relations between Helmut Kohl once did with his this year “from the German seg- opportunity for a future German- on the German government, it doctors and investigators con- the two powers, which stand to friend Boris Yeltsin, and more ment of the internet.” It was the Russian discourse that comprises becomes very difficult to tackle cluded that he had been drugged worsen considerably if Russia were often than Chancellor Gerhard first time that the Russians have more than just accusations and global problems in cooperation with a nerve agent formerly pro- to intervene with force in Belarus. Schröder used to call Putin two raised such an accusation, and it counter-accusations. After all, with Moscow. And if the Russian duced in the Soviet Union. The How can these two countries decades ago. But today, Russia and sounded a whole lot like a tit-for- Russia and Germany – and Eur- government continues its attempt Russian government and the doc- remain in discussions under such Germany converse in an entirely tat response. asia and Europe – will need to find to create divisions within the EU, tors in Omsk have since disputed conditions? different way. This exchange provides a good their bearings between the collid- the German government will have the German findings and presented It is a widely held misbelief that When Heiko Maas traveled to summary of today’s German- ing giants of China and the US. to pursue the opposite strategy: numerous alternative potential the Russian and German govern- Moscow on Aug. 11, he spoke with Russian dialogue. A reproach is Beyond Europe, Berlin and to close the ranks of the EU vis-à- causes of Navalny’s condition. ments do not talk to one another. Lavrov about a number of topics: levied, the accused is unrespon- Moscow share several further vis Moscow, including the use of Behind the competing accounts Countless visits between leaders the murder in Berlin, the cyberat- sive to the concerns of the accuser, goals. Both would like to continue sanctions. lies a deeper divide. of the two countries belie this tacks on the German government, the accused invents accusations the nuclear deal with Iran that the Unfortunately, in recent history, Germany and Russia live under notion of a diplomatic vacuum; it Ukraine, Syria, Belarus, Iran. In to distract from his failings, and US government broke and exited these kinds of adversarial tiffs have diametrically oppositional sys- is often Germany that seeks out response to Maas’ request for trust is nowhere in sight. This, of in 2018. At the end of August, occurred far too often. If nothing tems. Germany functions by the Russia. Chancellor Angela Merkel assistance in the investigation of course, stems from the contrast Moscow and Berlin united in the else, German-Russian relations are rule of law, a system in which the and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas the attack in Berlin, the Russian between rule by law and rule by UN Security Council to reject a story of willfully missed oppor- government and all authorities were already in Moscow during foreign minister responded with force, as is on full display in the the dubious US request to trig- tunities. are subjected to the same laws this difficult year defined by the newly concocted counter-accu- Navalny case. ger the snap-back mechanism of and to the same degree as its citi- COVID-19 pandemic. They talk sations. In the Little Tiergarten But it also stems from the his- the Iran sanctions. Both Germany zens. Russia is an authoritarian regularly on the phone with Presi- case, he argued, the Germans are torical reversal of the roles of and Russia have no interest in an Michael Thumann state that exploits the law and its dent Vladimir Putin and Foreign obliged to show evidence that Rus- Russia and Germany in Europe American-Chinese antagonism is a foreign policy monopoly on the use of force to Minister Sergey Lavrov. In fact, sian state officials were involved; – the second significant contrast leading to a new “You’re with us correspondent for Die Zeit. dominate its citizens. they speak more frequently with and as for the cyberattacks, Russia between the two countries. After or against us” dichotomy. LEGAL NOTICE continued from page 1 Publisher Detlef W. Prinz than unanimously adopting a Schengen area, where no one ciples of a worldwide agreement ARD MEDIATHEK Executive Editor weak position with little sub- is excluded, but the unwilling on migration and asylum. Theo Sommer stance.” His stance is shared by cannot put spokes into the wheel 10.