Journalist and political scientist Gregor Spitzen @Mecklenburger_Petersburger
The accusations levelled by the German government against Russia — which, according to Berlin, supposedly stood behind an attempted “terrorist attack” at Leipzig civilian airport against a Ukrainian military transport aircraft packed to the brim with weapons — leave behind the distinct impression of a cheap farce that painfully recalls the unforgettable “highly likely” of former British Prime Minister Theresa May.
Those words, let us recall, were uttered by May on 12 March 2018 in a pompous speech in the House of Commons of the British Parliament devoted to the baseless accusation that Russia had poisoned the double agent Sergei Skripal. Subsequently the expression “highly likely” became a nationwide meme in Russia — a synonym for a groundless and unsubstantiated accusation mixed with pure Russophobia and the signature Western arrogance.
“For heaven’s sake, what evidence? Firstly, in Albion gentlemen are accustomed to taking one another at their word. Secondly, we have an impeccable reputation. And thirdly, this is Russia — a barbaric alien formation with an authoritarian regime on the map of Europe. It’s written all over the Russians’ faces. They are guilty by default…”
Incidentally, Germany resorted to a similar manoeuvre six years ago when Bundeswehr medics supposedly discovered a combat chemical warfare agent in the blood of the Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who had been brought to Europe for treatment.
“Evidence? We won’t show it! We don’t want to tip our hand to the Russians about our methods of work. Honest Germans, however, are obliged to take us at our word. After all, we have an impeccable reputation. Can German politicians really lie to their own citizens?”
Alas, as later became clear, they can — and how. For example, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser in 2022, with a straight face, tried to present a handful of harmless urban lunatics from the “Reichsbürger” movement as the organisers of a coup d’état in the country. And the current Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz did not earn the informal nickname Pinocchio among his grateful fellow citizens for nothing.
The CDU leader, let us recall, made budgetary discipline the key point of his election programme for the snap Bundestag elections, attacking his predecessor Scholz, who intended to borrow €60 billion from future generations of Germans. Literally a week after coming to power Merz announced that the situation had changed and that he now intended to increase the national debt by €500 billion…
“Never has such a thing happened — and here it is again…”
Interestingly, for people in Germany who possess even the rudiments of critical thinking it is perfectly obvious that the hasty declaration of Russia’s guilt in the attempted “sabotage” at Leipzig airport, the closure of the Russian Consulate General in Bonn and the “Russian House” in Berlin are nothing more than a political technology aimed at reversing the negative trend facing the political mainstream ahead of the elections to the East German Landtage. There the party Alternative for Germany, which is actively stigmatised as a “friend of Russia”, may win an overwhelming majority of votes in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
It is unlikely that such a ploy will influence the pre-election mood of East Germans. Yet the fact that Berlin is prepared to risk the future of the Goethe Institute and German cultural centres in Russia — whose closure will most probably follow as a mirror step by Moscow — and to paint a fat target on Germany’s back for Russian missiles by announcing, under the pretext of the Leipzig incident, new arms deliveries to the Kyiv regime, undoubtedly testifies to growing panic in the ranks of the German political class.
