First visit to Moscow
Baerbock’s most difficult journey to date
01/18/2022 04:59 am
Relations between Berlin and Moscow are at a low point. After her inaugural visit to Ukraine, Foreign Minister Baerbock is traveling to Russia today, where she will meet her colleague Lavrov, who has experienced crises. For them it should be a kind of test by fire.
Regardless of serious conflicts with Russia, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is committed to dialogue with Moscow. “As the new federal government, we want substantial and stable relations with Russia,” said the Green politician before her meeting with her Russian colleague Sergey Lavrov in Moscow. But the list of conflict issues is long. The inaugural visit to the Russian capital should be a kind of test by fire for Baerbock. After taking office on December 8, she has probably never completed such a difficult journey.
The 71-year-old Lavrov has been Russia’s chief diplomat for almost 18 years, making him the longest-serving foreign minister in Europe. Before the new Foreign Minister’s visit, the Russian Foreign Ministry described Germany “as an influential player on the international stage”. However, Moscow is “disappointed” with the current status of Russian-German relations. “The German side is trying to influence the domestic political processes in Russia, and anti-Russian propaganda is being carried out in the German media,” it said.
On Monday, Baerbock was already in Ukraine for talks. The 41-year-old Kiev pledged diplomatic support to solve the crisis with Russia. Germany is ready for a dialogue with Russia. However, she again refused arms deliveries to Kiev.
For the CDU foreign politician Norbert Röttgen, the minister sent “an important sign of solidarity with Ukraine” by traveling first to Kiev and then to Moscow. Ukraine is just “an application” for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to revise the European order militarily if necessary, Röttgen told the editorial network Germany. Now it comes down to strength. Left-wing foreign expert Sevim Dagdelen criticized the Funke media group: “Unfortunately, Ms. Baerbock has so far not relied on diplomacy, but on threatening gestures towards Russia.” In this way, the minister is helping to ensure that Germany and the EU are left out in the negotiations on the guarantees demanded by Moscow. A spokesman for the Federal Foreign Office said that Baerbock’s talks in Moscow were not the continuation of the de-escalation of the crisis with Russia, which had been held in other formats.
These should be the central topics in Moscow:
The strained German-Russian relations: After the murder of a Georgian in Berlin’s Tiergarten in August 2019, a month ago a court convicted a Russian and accused Moscow of “state terrorism”. Both countries expelled each other’s diplomats. Germany also holds Russia responsible for hacker attacks on the Bundestag in 2015 and for the attack on Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny with the internationally banned chemical warfare agent Novichok. In addition, Moscow is angry about the broadcast stop for the German program of its state broadcaster RT.
Conflict in Eastern Ukraine: Parts of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk have been controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014. Despite a peace plan negotiated in Minsk (Belarus) with Franco-German mediation, the conflict does not come to an end. The German Foreign Minister now wants to get the negotiations going again. According to UN estimates, more than 14,000 people have been killed in the area so far. Russia and Ukraine repeatedly accuse each other of violating the peace plan. In the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk, structures of their own have long been formed with the help of Moscow.
The controversial Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 2: Shortly before Baerbock’s flight to Moscow, Russia’s Foreign Ministry warned against artificially prolonging the suspended certification. The Green politician is considered a skeptic. In contrast, the Kremlin, like Chancellor Olaf Scholz, sees the line as a private-sector project. The finished pipeline, which has not yet been released for operation, is to pump gas from Russia to Germany in the future – bypassing the Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin said that Nord Stream 2 would make gas in Europe cheaper again.
Human rights and Petersburg dialogue: Human rights activists have long complained about increasing repression measures against those who think differently in Russia. Several independent media and organizations have already had to shut down their work. Most recently, the court-ordered dissolution of the internationally well-known human rights organization Memorial also caused criticism in Germany. Last spring, Moscow also declared three German non-governmental organizations undesirable. The German side has therefore frozen its work in the Petersburg Dialogue, which was founded 20 years ago. Putin had launched the communication platform for civil society in both countries with the then Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.