German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock, in an article published by The Guardian, admitted that Berlin had ignored warnings from NATO’s eastern allies about the Russian threat for “too long”.

“For too long, we have ignored the warnings of our eastern neighbors, who urged us to take threats from Russia seriously. We realized that ‘hoping for the best’ is not enough when we are dealing with an increasingly authoritarian leader,” she said.

“Despite our efforts to build a European security architecture that includes Russia, neither our economic nor political interactions [cu Moscova] they did not push the Russian regime towards democracy,” lamented Berbock, the first woman appointed as German foreign minister.

For too long, she said, Germany has relied on “checkbook diplomacy,” or the belief that the prosperity that comes from free economic relations between countries can encourage an authoritarian regime to move toward democratic values.

“We now know that President Putin’s Russia will remain a threat to peace and security on our continent for the foreseeable future, and that we must organize our security against Putin’s Russia, not with it,” she added.

The head of German diplomacy talks about common security with NATO’s eastern countries

She also suggested ahead of next week’s NATO summit in Vilnius that Germany’s security interests are linked to those of allies on the alliance’s eastern flank “because the security of Eastern Europe is also Germany’s security”.

Burbock also recalled the national shame still felt by the German people over the outbreak of World War II and the atrocities committed during it, noting that in the decades that followed, “our country’s foreign policy was guided by the premise that war must never again be set foot on German soil. land”.

However, it also showed how the war launched by Vladimir Putin on February 24 last year led to a change in Berlin’s policy.

“Just two years ago, the idea that Germany could put tanks, anti-aircraft systems and howitzers into a conflict zone would have seemed incredible, to put it mildly. Today, Germany is one of the main suppliers of weapons for the defense of Ukraine,” said the head of German diplomacy.

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