@DmitriTrenin seems to argue that Germany's energy interdependence with Russia has made the Kremlin more open to compromise in Ukraine and Belarus. Yet Russian aggression against Ukraine since 2014 and the current silent takeover of Belarus suggests the opposite.
Germany reacts to changes in Russia: a more authoritarian system leaving less space for opposition; no compromise in Ukraine; war crimes in Syria; the propping up of the Belarusian dictator. The old strategy of interdependence has produced the opposite of what was intended.
A big cyber attack on the German parliament and the killing of an opponent of the regime in plain sight in Berlin has demonstrated to Germans that the Kremlin has no respect for German sovereignty -- that it doesn't consider Germany a partner.
If there has been hostility in the last years, then certainly not from the German side.
Germany remains to be willing to engage with Russia if the Kremlin is interested in meaningful dialogue. But German red lines have been crossed many times, and Berlin increasingly thinks that deepening German energy dependence on Russia isn't in Germany's and Europe's interest.
Therefore Germany is increasingly moving from modernisation theory / liberalism towards a more muscular realpolitik. Something that should be familiar to Moscow.
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