During a speech given at Bialystok, the Deputy Prime Minister of Poland, leader of the Law and Justice Party and de facto president of his country, Yaroslav Kaczynski, said that his country should not buckle on the issue of war damages.

Germany considers that it has already overpaid for the damages it caused during the Second World War, but Poland deems it insufficient.

In Kaczynski’s words: “We cannot back down, we cannot be indulgent. One cannot give to others and demand nothing in return, simply because it always ends badly”.

The populations of Central Europe suffered greatly at the hands of the German and Russian empires. The war in Ukraine, led by the anti-Russians, has rekindled anti-German sentiments.

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Eine Einbruchserie, lange Ermittlungen, ein irrer Plan: Wie deutsche Soldaten in den Ukraine-Krieg eingreifen wollten

Der Alfa Romeo hält an einer Straßenecke, schwarzer Wagen in schwarzer Nacht. 0.22 Uhr: eine Person im Auto. Der Marinestützpunkt Eckernförde, wo die Minentaucher und Kampfschwimmer trainieren, wo große graue Schiffe in tiefem Wasser ankern, liegt nur ein paar Hundert Meter entfernt. 0.24 Uhr: drei Personen im Auto. Der Alfa fährt los, durch die Straßen Eckernfördes, kleine Stadt an der Ostsee, ganz im Norden. Im Zentrum eine rote Ampel, der Wagen muss halten.

Among the dozen suspects arrested in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein for a series of burglaries at military bases were two Bundeswehr soldiers who wanted to use the purloined explosives to destroy the bridge between Crimea and the Russian mainland, a German tabloid reported, citing police sources.

“A series of burglaries, long investigations, a crazy plan: How German soldiers wanted to intervene in the Ukraine war,” the Hamburg-based weekly Stern said in a headline. The story, pieced together from police reports, details the investigation into a theft ring that involved a total of four Bundeswehr soldiers and eight other suspects rounded up by the police in Kiel.

The arrests actually happened on May 22, to little or no media attention, as the probe was focused on break-ins at military facilities and the theft of weapons, explosives, and other ammunition for resale at the black market. The bridge plot was discovered by accident, as police monitored the suspects’ phone conversations, according to the magazine.

During the calls, the two men discussed the type and quantity of materials they would need to destroy the 19-kilometer bridge between Crimea and the Taman peninsula, as a way to help Ukraine in the conflict with Russia.

Just before they were arrested, the conspirators had tried – unsuccessfully – to steal diving equipment from the Eckernfoerde naval facility near Kiel. Police say they had planned to travel to Ukraine a few days later. Ammunition, weapons and explosives were found at the home of the two soldiers. Stern said the stolen goods were partly intended for resale and partly for personal use – including the Crimea plot.

The ring allegedly began operations last summer, and broke into a barracks in Alt Duvenstedt and a naval facility in Eckernfoerde at the beginning of 2022, before the hostilities in Ukraine escalated.

Crimea voted to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia in March 2014, following the US-backed coup in Kiev. The bridge was built to connect the peninsula to the Russian mainland, with the road portion opening in 2018 and the rail segment in 2020. 

Though Russian troops established an overland connection with Crimea early on in the conflict by taking most of the Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, the government in Kiev has remained fixated on destroying the bridge. 

“If there is an opportunity to do this, we will definitely do it,” said Alexey Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, in an April interview.

Ukrainian general Dmitry Marchenko told US state-run media last month that Kiev still wanted to blow up the bridge, but was waiting for the West to deliver the right kind of weapons. Alexey Arestovich, a top aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said last week that the plans to go after the bridge were absolutely still in play.

On Thursday, former NATO commander in Europe and retired US Air Force general Philip Breedlove told the Times the Ukrainians should target the bridge with Harpoon anti-ship missiles recently delivered by the Pentagon. 

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https://www.rt.com/russia/558596-bundeswehr-soldiers-crimea-bridge/

Ukraine could deal a devastating blow to the Kremlin by attacking the Kerch Strait bridge, which links mainland Russia with Crimea, using newly supplied Harpoon missiles, a former Nato commander has told The Times.

General Philip Breedlove, who was supreme allied commander for Europe from 2013 to 2016, said an attack on the bridge was justified by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine from all quarters. “Kerch bridge is a legitimate target,” he said.

Breedlove’s support for such an attack came as Russia launched airstrikes on the city of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine. Oleksandr Goncharenko, the mayor, said there had been casualties and advised all residents to stay in shelters. The city of Sloviansk, near Kramatorsk, also came under attack.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cut-off-russias-link-to-crimea-says-ex-nato-commander-qh93slq0k

GusNote: attacking the Kerch Strait bridge would be a strong motivation for Russia to destroy Kiev, which Russia has avoided so far, while awaiting Zelenskyyy-yyyy to make a deal sooner than later..... I believe that the Kiev government knows this..... General Philip Breedlove always has been a warmongering idiot.

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By Alexander Davydov, co-chairman of German Studies Club NSO MGIMO, Moscow

What was known as the “memory culture” was an essential element of the foreign policy strategy of post-war Germany. Wise leaders were able to gradually restore the importance of the country on the international stage and achieve strategic goals.

A prime example was Chancellor Willy Brandt’s ‘Ostpolitik,’ based on ideas of repentance and overcoming post-war enmity. The historical reconciliation between Bonn and the USSR became the basis for the future unification of Germany – solving the main task of the country’s political elites after the end of World War II.

However, less gifted politicians find historical memory a handicap and a hardship. For neighbours, the ambitions of German leadership in Europe bring back painful memories. Indeed, historical documents such as the Treaty of German Unification, limit the military capabilities of the state – which is a direct obstacle to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s dream for the creation of “the strongest army in Europe.”

Today, the image of a peace-loving nation that has re-educated itself after the tragedy of two world wars does not fit well with active arms deliveries to Ukraine.

“This war must end,” Scholz recently warned, while in Kiev. Meanwhile, his government’s website is regularly updated with information on weapons already delivered and planned to be delivered to the Ukrainians. This is what you might call a paradox.

Let’s look at some of the rhetoric coming out of Berlin. On June 21, on the eve of Russia’s Day of Remembrance and Sorrow, Economy Minister Robert Habeck called the reduction of Russian gas supplies “an attack on Germany.” Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has claimed that “Russia deliberately uses hunger as a weapon.”

By the way, behind the unfounded lies are real historical data – more than four million Soviet citizens were starved to death during the Nazi occupation.

At the G7 summit last month, Scholz called on participants to prepare a new “Marshall Plan” for Ukraine, twisting the meaning of the programme that helped Western Europe recover from the horrors of fascism. It feels like a policy of remembrance is being replaced by a policy of deliberate amnesia.

The “change of epochs” proclaimed by Scholz at the end of February means one thing so far: Berlin is abandoning everything before that time. In relations with Russia, even the modest achievements of the past have become the subject of censure, and Moscow’s calls for a European system of indivisible security are perceived as fantastical ideas.

The culture of cancellation prevails over the historicism of diplomacy. Berlin’s reluctance to put politics into a historical context demonstrates the absence of self-determined goal-setting and a coherent strategy.

Before the election, the incoming chancellor promised a renewed foreign policy in the spirit of his predecessor and fellow party member Brandt. Previously, Germany’s eastern policy, complex and controversial, confirmed that the government could find a delicate balance between values and interests: maintain allied solidarity in the EU and NATO, but keep space for dialogue with “opponents of the collective West.” In other words, argue over political and moral issues while developing mutually beneficial commercial projects.

Scholz’s approach is the opposite of what Willy Brandt and his followers worked on. Berlin has finally narrowed the once dynamic and multifaceted eastern policy solely in support of Kiev. In international relations, however, simplification rarely reduces contradictions.

This sort of primitivization does not add credibility to the German leadership, but it does raise doubts about its competence.

The granting of EU candidate status to Ukraine, actively supported by Berlin, could also turn out to be an embarrassment. And it is not just about the five other official members of the waiting list and several potential contenders, who have been waiting or are still waiting years for this decision, all the while trying to fulfil the EU’s strict requirements. In Germany’s foreign policy approach, showmanship and symbolism are gradually replacing order and consistency.

After all, on a more practical level, everyone recognises that Ukraine’s real participation in the European Union is impossible and it is unclear whether it will ever become tangible at all.

The unique path that the peoples of Germany and Russia took together after WW2 demanded repentance on the one hand and forgiveness on the other. Now, for the sake of “allied solidarity,”Germany is sacrificing the fruits of this painstaking shared work.

Indeed, Berlin would probably be prepared to turn its back on other countries if its allies demanded it. For example, China – Germany’s main trading partner for the past six years – will instantly become an irreconcilable enemy if the US-China stand-off escalates.

Was it possible to expect a different reaction from the Germans to the events now taking place? More balanced statements from cabinet members and less aggressive headlines in their house journal, Der Spiegel?

Partly, the current turnaround is the flip side of the course that has been the basis of German policy up to now. Berlin had systematically reduced the importance of the Bundeswehr after unification, based on the irreversibility of the so-called “end of history” and, as a result, was totally unprepared for the dramatically changed politico-military realities of today. Moreover, very few expected that Russia would move from years of exhortations, which could be ignored, to decisive action. The decades-long rejection of Realpolitik in favour of a values-based approach and the willingness to put the remaining questions of strategic security under US and NATO control predetermined Berlin’s reaction to current events. At the moment it is not so much aggression as confusion.

"Solidarity with allies and distortion of history is a safe haven for a government that planned to devote itself to an environmentalist and virtue-signalling foreign policy in 2022, rather than renewing the army and supplying arms to the conflict region."

The German leadership believes it simply cannot afford not to be on what it thinks is the “right side of history,” as Scholz called it in February. Because otherwise the entire political and ideological basis of the cabinet would crumble and it would prompt questions about its adequacy.

“German foreign policy has stood on one leg since 1949. We face another challenge: not to pursue a policy of maneuvering, but to stand on the second leg as well, based on friendship with the West and negotiating every step with our Western friends, which is called an Eastern policy,” Brandt once outlined. By taking a shot at the “second leg,” Berlin continues to stand firmly on the first one. The question is whether it is possible to get far on just one leg.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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Accordint to my informants in Germany, "the new lot of politicians are not even like kids in a lollyshop. Their work résumés shows them as kids in nappies unable to clean their own bums." 

Die neuen Politiker sind nicht einmal wie Kinder im Lutscherladen. Ihre Lebensläufe zeigen sie als Kinder in Windeln, die nicht in der Lage sind, ihren eigenen Hintern zu putzen. — or something like that...

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