Speaking as a historian, my future colleagues looking back on early 21st century European history will have much to discuss at their conferences.
Concerning geopolitics, they will argue about how post-Cold War Europe managed not to emancipate itself from the US but, on the contrary, became submissive as never before. Regarding economics, they will ponder the mystery of Europe’s decline – predicted, much lamented, and yet irresistible. The legacy of Israel’s Gaza genocide will, of course, have generated a whole range of literature about how most of Europe took part in perpetrating it or looked away.
But during the coffee breaks, there will be those moments of nerd humor that only fellow academics find funny, where a favorite game could be to ask which two states had the kinkiest relationship. Hands-down, every time, the winner of most-perverse-international-relationship is going to be the Germany-Ukraine couple.
Why, you ask? For one thing, there is the outstanding absurdity of a state, Germany, not only tolerating a massive eco-terrorist attack on its energy infrastructure and thus its economy and therefore politics (the 2022 Nord Stream explosions) but helping in the cover-up and generously rewarding the attackers, that is, Ukraine and friends. It is impossible to think of a more bizarro example of sadomasochism in international politics. Then there is the German political and media elites’ odd habit of letting themselves be publicly insulted and cajoled by the representatives of a Ukrainian regime that could not survive a day without Western, very much including German, support. Former ambassador Andrey Melnik was a past master at that sport, but as it turns out, his current successor, Aleksey Makeev, is no slouch either.
Recently, Makeev has felt the urge to tell his host country how to do democracy properly. No, really, that’s not a joke: The representative of Kiev’s Zelensky regime has lessons to teach and insights to share. Yes, that would be the same regime which has a leader who “missed” his last election, which lacks a functioning opposition or free media, conducts regular public manhunts to catch cannon fodder for the proxy war against Russia it is carrying out for the West, and admits that Ukraine’s very, very far right has a veto on its foreign policy (and then some).
What stung Makeev into action is the fact that Germany’s rising new BSW party (Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance – Reason and Justice) is too successful for his taste. By combining........