How far will Merkel go to bail out Putin from his current economic travails?

In my last blog entry (16/5/2018) I wrote that,

"Hedging his bets in case his Kerch bridge proves to be the 'white elephant' that it is, Putin has begun to accelerate his attempt to secure a land-bridge connection between Russia and Ukraine."

As UNIAN reports,

• The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine has reported it spotted a significant accumulation of heavy weapons near the occupied village of Buhaivka in Donbas. (UNIAN: 22 May, 2018) (my emphasis)

• The occupation forces attacked Ukrainian troops 53 times in the past day. In particular, 30 attacks were mounted with the use of proscribed 122mm artillery systems, 120mm and 82mm mortars. (UNIAN: 22 May, 2018) (my emphasis)

However, it is also reported that,

"Ukraine conducted first launches of the Javelin missile systems today, May 22.

"Finally this day has come! Today, for the first time in Ukraine, the launch of Javelin missile complexes took place. This is a very effective defensive weaponry, which is used in the event of Russian offensive on the positions of Ukrainian troops," Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wrote on Twitter." (UNIAN : 22 May, 2018) (my emphasis)

 

As well as conducting their first test of the Javelin Anti-Tank missile, UNIAN also reported that,

"The Ukrainian Armed Forces have repelled a militant subversive group that attempted to force the Ukrainian army out of the recently liberated village of Pivdenne in Donetsk region." (UNIAN : 21 May, 2018) (my emphasis)

Spitting nails, Putin has now decided to intensify his cyber attacks against Ukraine.

As reported by Jim Finkle and Pavel Polityuk,

"The U.S. government said late on Wednesday that it would seek to wrestle hundreds of thousands of infected routers and storage devices from the control of hackers who security researchers warned were planning to use the “botnet” to attack Ukraine.
...
Cisco said the largest number of infections from the VPNFilter malware were in Ukraine, which led it to believe Russia was planning an attack on that country. " (Reuters : May 23, 2018) (my emphasis) 
 

And whilst Putin's anger is now focusing itself on mounting a fully-fledged cyber attack against Ukraine, nonetheless the Putinversteher Angela Merkel concluded her meeting in Sochi with Putin (18 May, 2018), emphasizing that,

"We have strategic interests to maintain good relations with Russia ..." (see video below)

To which Putin responded,

"Germany is one of our key trade partners ... We just started to buy German goods in higher volumes, which supports jobs in Germany" (see video below)

Yet again am I reminded of the 1922 Treaty of Rapallo that was signed between Germany and Russia, in particular Article 5, which states that,

• Article 5: The two Governments shall co-operate in a spirit of mutual goodwill in meeting the economic needs of both countries. In the event of a fundamental settlement of the above question on an international basis, an exchange of opinions shall previously take place between the two Governments. The German Government, having lately been informed of the proposed agreements of private firms, declares its readiness to give all possible support to these arrangements and to facilitate their being carried into effect.

The $64 question is,

"Just how far will Merkel go to bail out Putin from his current economic travails?" 

(to be continued)