On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin again sought to portray Russia as the victim of NATO and U.S. aggression, ignoring his country’s security concerns and forcing him to mass 100,000 troops on the border with Ukraine.
“Let’s imagine Ukraine is a NATO member and starts these military operations. Are we supposed to go to war with the NATO bloc? Has anyone given that any thought? Apparently not,” Putin said at a news conference in Moscow that followed a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, now chairman of the shareholders' committee of Nord Stream AG, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in 2021. Economist Anders Åslund, author of “Russia’s Crony Capitalism,” regards Schröder as “the leading Russian agent in Germany,” adding that even though out of office, "Schröder pretty much controls German foreign policy on Russia.”
The appearance of graft aside, Vike-Freiberga said she long viewed the Nord Stream 2 deal as a “security threat” for Germany, the European Union and NATO. While Germany initially balked at that idea, its new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said recently that shutting down or at least delaying the opening of the pipeline is “on the table.”
Evelyn Farkas, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, is also concerned about the pattern.
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