Germany's "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact" over Ukraine in 2022

As reported by Sky News,

" ... Russia's defence minister has accepted an invitation to meet his UK counterpart Ben Wallace amid fears that an invasion of Ukraine is "imminent".

The British defence secretary offered earlier this week to hold talks with Sergei Shoigu in London to discuss mutual security concerns, against heightened tensions with the Kremlin over its former Soviet neighbour But given the last bilateral defence talks between the two countries took place in London, Mr Shoigu has agreed to meet in Moscow instead." (Sky News : 22 January 2022) (my emphasis).

What is interesting about this proposed meeting is that it almost obviously has the blessing of Putin.

Now recall that in my blog entry (19/01/2022) I wrote that,

 

" .... we now have the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock (right), 

 

" ..[insisting that] her country would stick to its ban on German weapons exports on a visit to Kiev this week.  “Our stance is not only well known, but historically well founded,” Ms Baerbock said.

But she has not commented on whether the new German government plans to continue Mrs Merkel’s policy of obstructing its allies from arming Ukraine." (Dominic Nicholls, Danielle Sheridan, Nataliya Vasilyeva, Justin Huggler : Daily Telegraph : 18 January 2022) (my emphasis)"

The mask has now fallen from this argument of German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and revealed the true "historically well founded" German reason for not supplying Ukraine with arms to defend itself against Putin.

Step forward Kay-Achim Schönbach (left), the head of the German navy.

BBC News now reports that,

"The head of the German navy has resigned over controversial comments he made over Ukraine.
...
He made the comments while speaking at a think-tank discussion in India on Friday and the video was later published to social media. (Youtube : 21 January 2022 : pos: 1:04)

In the video, Mr Schönbach said Putin needed to be treated as an equal by the west.

"It is easy to give him the respect he really demands - and also probably deserves," he said.

He added that the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, "is gone and will never come back". (BBC News : 23 January 2022) (my emphasis)

One should NOT be surprised at the revealing comments of Germany's Head of Navy.

As the Economist wrote in 2014, the year when Putin illegally annexed Crimea and sent his troops into the Donbas region of Ukraine,

"WHEN Germans add the word Versteher (one who understands) to a term, they generally mix flattery with irony. So a Frauenversteher (one who understands women) is usually a man who boasts excessively about his knowledge of the opposite sex. The label is now being attached to so-called Russlandversteher or Putinversteher: members of the elite or intelligentsia who gush with empathy for Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, on talk shows, in journals and at dinner parties.

They include two former Social Democratic chancellors. In the newspaper Die Zeit, Helmut Schmidt said Mr Putin’s annexation of Crimea was not quite “legitimate” but certainly “understandable”. Gerhard Schröder went further and threw himself into Mr Putin’s hug (left) at a party in St Petersburg in late April (ostensibly to mark Mr Schröder’s 70th birthday). (The Economist : 8 May 2014) (my emphasis)

Kay-Achim Schönbach, the head of the German navy, is certainly a "Putinversteher" as defined above. 

But what about German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock? Has she also exposed herself as a "Putinversteher"? 

Both "Putinversteher" Kay-Achim Schönbach and Annalena Baerbock need a history lesson about Ukraine from US Secretary of State, John Blinken, before tacitly agreeing with the sentiments of former German Chancellors, including Angela Merkel, that Putin's illegal invasion and annexation of Crimea is "certainly understandable" . (cf: Matthew Chance and Laura Smith-Spark : CNN : 22 January 2022) (my emphasis)

As reported by Euronews (with AFP),

"Ukraine's foreign minister (left) has accused Germany of undermining unity among the country's allies and of "encouraging" Vladimir Putin by refusing to deliver arms to Kyiv.
....
"Today, the unity of the West with Russia is more important than ever. To achieve it and deter the Russian Federation, we are all working together," Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba responded via Twitter.
....
"German partners must stop such words and actions to undermine unity and encourage Vladimir Putin to a new attack on Ukraine." (Euronews : 23 January 2022) (my emphasis)

The question now is, "Is Germany resuscitating an equivalent of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact" of 1939 between Germany and Stalin's Russia over Ukraine in 2022?

(to be continued)