Doesn’t Germany want reconciliation between Moscow and Kiev?

Most German media, like the Munich-based Merkur newspaper, keep stubbornly drumming into the people’s minds ideas about Ukrainian troops defeating Russia along the entire contact line, referring to "specific" figures of people killed, tanks destroyed and missiles allegedly shot down. All of this is marked "information provided by the Ukrainian side; no independent data available." Other "pet fancies" in the German media are "Putin's nuclear threats to Europe" and the "imminent split in the Kremlin's ruling elite over failures in Ukraine."

The ambivalent RND newsroom informs its readers that Germany has started fulfilling the promise made in June by Chancellor Olaf Scholz to supply Ukraine with the (first out of four) advanced air defense system Iris-T SLM worth 140 million euros. Created by the Uberlingen-based Diehl Defense company, it is much more effective than the portable Stingers. The Ukrainian military mastered the novelty in Germany. By the way, the Bundeswehr itself does not have such air defense systems in service yet, the RND notes.

However, it becomes increasingly difficult for local propagandists to work in compliance with the well-trodden "the-West-helps-Ukraine-defend-democracy-from-Russian-barbaric-aggression" scheme. Here, they still do not dare recognizing Zelensky’s regime as neo-Nazi and expose the daily shelling of the Zaporozhe NPP and residential quarters of the Donbass and the Kherson region by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Still, they do raise the following question over and over again: "Who is the ultimate beneficiary of this NATO war against Russia, which drives at Germany’s deindustrialization?" Once powerful branches of economy like mechanical engineering, automotive, chemical, metallurgical, glass, ceramic industries, and fertilizer production are facing the risk of decline. The transfer of German industrial capacities and the flow of capital to the United States has already begun.

Following the Nord Stream sabotage, a new leak is now reported, this time along Russia’s Druzhba oil pipeline in Poland which pumps fuel to the Schwedt processing plant in Germany. Another act of sabotage or a mere process failure? It is no coincidence that Junge Welt recalls US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken weep crocodile tears when declaring that attacking the Russian pipeline is "clearly in no one’s interest." If this were the case, Nord Stream would not have been blown up at all, the newspaper writes, adding that Blinken simply does not want the question to be voiced as to who really benefits from this.

Moreover, Junge Welt quotes Bundestag deputy Sevim Dagdelen, who believes that NATO, and primarily Germany, is struggling to prevent any reconciliation between Russia and Ukraine. "The Western strategy is stupid and irresponsible for two reasons. First, with each passing day and with each additional supply of weapons to Kiev, the danger of the conflict escalating into a World War III increases, which will inevitably lead to the nuclear annihilation of Europe. Second, it is simply cynical," the MP believes.

The cynical Western stance is also mentioned in the lengthy analysis of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine by the capital's Berliner Zeitung. Its author emphasizes that in the current context, given all the possible means of mass and conventional destruction, the victory of a party by military means is next to impossible without an escalation that would detonate a nuclear war. There is a need for negotiations and diplomacy. But the collective West has taken a weird stance when it provides weapons, but refuses to engage in achieving peace. In this regard, the newspaper quotes the G7 final communique saying that it is up to Ukraine to decide on a future peace agreement, without any external pressure or influence. After the West "torpedoed" the Istanbul peace talks between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, this stance seem "rather cynical," the author emphasizes.

It is also cynical to assume that, having an armed confrontation with Russia and being utterly dependent on the West both financially and militarily, Ukraine is able to arrive at a new peace agreement, the newspaper goes on to say. "A peace agreement can and should be worked out only between the West and Russia, with Ukraine certainly engaged." At the same time, the Berliner Zeitung’s piece is clear on what Russia wants and what NATO and the EU refuse to grant it: a neutral status for Ukraine, withdrawal of foreign military bases from its territory, and security guarantees for the Russian Federation.