In a powerful and revealing editorial published this morning, Mikheil Saakashvili, a former president of Georgia and a former governor of the Odessa region in Ukraine, strongly backs President Trump's criticism of the Russian-German pipeline (Nord Stream 2) and raises troubling questions about the German government's conduct toward Eastern Europe. Here's an excerpt:
The whole editorial is definitely worth reading.
As the president of the former Soviet republic of Georgia from 2004-2013, and the governor of the Odessa region in Ukraine from 2015 to 2016, I speak for many in Ukraine and Georgia — two countries on the front lines of the Russian threat — in saying that we have long felt a deep unease with Russian-German energy deals like the natural gas pipeline Nord Stream 2. Indeed, the implications of this pipeline pose an existential threat to the independence and security of American allies in Eastern Europe.
My first official visit as President of Georgia was to Germany in 2004, where I spoke with Chancellor Gerhard Schroder. As a newcomer to politics, I was elated to meet the leader of a major Western power and have a candid discussion on regional issues. In the course of our conversation, I mentioned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s increasingly assertive policies in the former Soviet region. To my amazement, the Russian ambassador to Georgia showed up at my office a few days later and produced an accurate readout of my meeting with Chancellor Schroder — accompanied by a message from Putin, that he was unhappy with me complaining to the West about Russian foreign policy.
I later found that the chancellor had been concerned, in the aftermath of our official meeting, that the points I brought up might create tension in the very comfortable relationship Germany enjoyed with Russia. The German side had shared these concerns with Russian officials, hence the visit from the Russian ambassador. When Schroder left office several years later, he became the director of a subsidiary of Gazprom, the Russian energy firm inextricably connected to the Kremlin. President Trump alluded to this in his remarks at NATO yesterday.
Since Schroder dissipated into the Russian bureaucracy, Chancellor Angela Merkel has taken a harder line on Russia—at least in rhetoric. Moreover, Germany’s support of the sanctions on Russia following the annexation of Crimea in 2014 has been instrumental in standing up to Putin’s revanchist policies. But, as Trump pointed out yesterday, Germany is playing both sides. At the NATO Bucharest Summit in 2008, Chancellor Merkel decisively blocked the Membership Action Plan for Georgia, the largest per-capita contributor of troops to the NATO mission in Afghanistan.
In doing so, Germany undermined the strategic decision of the U.S. to expand NATO in Eastern Europe—despite the fact that, as President Trump correctly asserted, U.S. contributions to NATO are higher than Germany’s by an order of magnitude. Moreover, I believe Germany’s refusal to offer a NATO Membership Action Plan to Georgia emboldened Russia to invade my country in August 2008. (Mikheil Saakashvili: Trump is right that Germany is too cozy with Russia)
My first official visit as President of Georgia was to Germany in 2004, where I spoke with Chancellor Gerhard Schroder. As a newcomer to politics, I was elated to meet the leader of a major Western power and have a candid discussion on regional issues. In the course of our conversation, I mentioned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s increasingly assertive policies in the former Soviet region. To my amazement, the Russian ambassador to Georgia showed up at my office a few days later and produced an accurate readout of my meeting with Chancellor Schroder — accompanied by a message from Putin, that he was unhappy with me complaining to the West about Russian foreign policy.
I later found that the chancellor had been concerned, in the aftermath of our official meeting, that the points I brought up might create tension in the very comfortable relationship Germany enjoyed with Russia. The German side had shared these concerns with Russian officials, hence the visit from the Russian ambassador. When Schroder left office several years later, he became the director of a subsidiary of Gazprom, the Russian energy firm inextricably connected to the Kremlin. President Trump alluded to this in his remarks at NATO yesterday.
Since Schroder dissipated into the Russian bureaucracy, Chancellor Angela Merkel has taken a harder line on Russia—at least in rhetoric. Moreover, Germany’s support of the sanctions on Russia following the annexation of Crimea in 2014 has been instrumental in standing up to Putin’s revanchist policies. But, as Trump pointed out yesterday, Germany is playing both sides. At the NATO Bucharest Summit in 2008, Chancellor Merkel decisively blocked the Membership Action Plan for Georgia, the largest per-capita contributor of troops to the NATO mission in Afghanistan.
In doing so, Germany undermined the strategic decision of the U.S. to expand NATO in Eastern Europe—despite the fact that, as President Trump correctly asserted, U.S. contributions to NATO are higher than Germany’s by an order of magnitude. Moreover, I believe Germany’s refusal to offer a NATO Membership Action Plan to Georgia emboldened Russia to invade my country in August 2008. (Mikheil Saakashvili: Trump is right that Germany is too cozy with Russia)
The whole editorial is definitely worth reading.
