#Germany: A very useful interview with Angela Merkel's former political adviser Christoph Heusgen explaining which were the most challenging decisions related to Eastern Europe and Russia: 1) Ukraine-Russia: “We did not want to promote that conflict. bit.ly/3lT0fgk ⤵️
That is why, against strong opposition from the United States, she prevented Ukraine from being granted the prospect of joining NATO; nor did the Association Agreement with the European Union open up any prospect of membership. She always kept in mind what was tolerable for ⤵️
Russia. But then, overnight, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said: No, I'm not going to do this thing with the EU.” 2) Russian aggression: “But we could not have known that Russia was planning an invasion. U.S.Senator John McCain, however, felt it could have been ⤵️
foreseen. From the moment when President Obama stood by and watched as Assad cross his red line in Syria in 2013 and deployed poison gas against the civilian population. McCain felt Putin saw this as a sign of weakness and believed that the Americans would not intervene in ⤵️
Ukraine either. But we still couldn’t tell the Ukrainians: Sorry, because of your geographical position, there can be no Association Agreement. 3) Russia: “In contrast to Russia, China actually does care about its reputation abroad. The Russians don’t care if a resolution ⤵️
is passed against them in the General Assembly by a vote of 120 to five.”4) NordStream2: “Let me answer that on principle. My role in the Chancellery was that of foreign policy adviser. However, decisions very often also have economic or domestic policy dimensions that the ⤵️
chancellor must take into account. If the chancellor then makes a decision, you have to accept it. She’s the politician, I am the civil servant. If you can’t deal with that, then you should find another job or go into politics yourself.” By @SPIEGEL_English
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