By KELLY TSHIBAKA
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is a tragic and complex issue that warrants a comprehensive analysis of the various factors at play. While Germany is not directly responsible for the decisions of either nation or their leaders, as a significant player in European politics and economics, its actions inadvertently contributed to the escalation of conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Ric Grenell, Former U.S. Ambassador to Germany, joined STAND, to share his perspective on how Germany contributed to the Russia-Ukraine war and what he did to try to stop it.
One of the key aspects of Germany’s role in the conflict is its energy relations with Russia. Germany pursued energy partnerships, most notably the Nord Stream projects, as a means to ensure its energy security. While Germany took the position that energy relations should be separated from geopolitical conflicts, these projects long raised concerns regarding Europe’s energy dependency on Russia and the potential bypassing of Ukraine, which historically served as a significant transit route for Russian gas.
In a recent interview on STAND with Kelly & Niki Tshibaka, Ric Grenell, former Ambassador to Germany, emphasized that by promoting and supporting energy partnership projects with Russia, Germany inadvertently weakened Ukraine’s strategic importance and added to its economic and geopolitical vulnerability.
Specifically, the Nord Stream projects allowed Russia to circumvent Ukraine, reducing its leverage and significance in the energy transportation network. Consequently, this situation indirectly enabled Russia to pursue aggressive actions against Ukraine without the same level of economic consequences it might have faced had Ukraine remained a critical transit country for Russia’s energy exports.
Moreover, Germany’s hesitancy to take a more assertive stance against Russia during the early stages of the conflict may have emboldened Moscow. Germany, being a NATO country and a major economic partner with Russia, possessed the potential to exert substantial influence on Russian foreign policy decision-making. However, its approach of prioritizing dialogue over punitive measures arguably delayed a unified European response and inadvertently allowed Russia more room to escalate the conflict.
Sanctions, as a diplomatic tool, have been employed to curb Russia’s actions in Ukraine, and Germany has supported these measures. However, the interdependent economic relationship between Germany and Russia has made the imposition of substantial sanctions more challenging, underscoring the complex balance between economic interests and geopolitical concerns.
In conclusion, Germany’s inadvertent role in contributing to the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict lies in its energy partnerships, diplomatic approach, and economic ties with Russia. While Germany’s intentions may have been focused on its national interests and energy security, these actions had indirect and tragic consequences on the geopolitical situation in Eastern Europe.
Moving forward, a nuanced and comprehensive approach of international relations must also consider the implications of energy partnerships and economic interdependence in order to foster a peaceful resolution to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
Kelly Tshibaka is the host of the podcast, TV, and radio show STAND, and the 2022 Alaska Republican candidate for U.S. Senate. She co-hosts the show with her husband, Niki Tshibaka.
Germany’s former prime minister, Merkel, is gone from that role but the G summit she attended argued against the stance she was taking with Russia over the development purpose and where the pipe would lead too in their energy needs with the position they held in NATO. Merkel wouldn’t listen and bought shares in Russia’s pipeline for her personal enrichment. She also ran again for office to insure she stabilized her personal wealth with Russia. Its no wonder Ukraine is in a war. Like the Crimea annexation by Putin, Obama gave a nod to Russia and turned his head when that occurred. By the time Obama left office, he was another “Benedict Arnold ” in history and a very wealthy one at that.
In reality we should look inward for the main culprit. The US has likely done the most over the last 30 years to foment this war and now we will pay the price. Sanctions and seizing Russian assets may prove to be the proverbial straw that breaks the dollars’ back. Let us pray that it is not our complete undoing.
What color is the sky in your world?
Yep, Cliinton, Empty Suite Obama, and Biden did it
The moronic elites who control the US and EU are considering a 12th sanction package against Russia, despite the absolute failure of the previous ones. The US, Germany and the UK are pursuing suicidal economic, demographic and social policies. The US Dollar is propped up by foreign countries purchasing treasury notes, while the BRICS countries are moving toward gold and tangible commodity based currency. Any rational world leader would seek a viable alternative to having their national assets seized by a foreign country run by unstable, unelected, unaccountable, and corrupt authorities who create a path of destruction from the violent conflicts they start while exfiltrating wealth.
“In reality we should look inward for the main culprit………”
Of course. The U.S. is always the reason why one nation invades another. It’s the same principle as why burqas prevent rape: rape is always the woman’s fault.
Interesting view and most certainly contributing factors in Joe Biden’s solution to the Russian/German energy agreement, Blowing up the Nordstream Pipeline like a juvenile playing a board game who cant control the game so lets destroy the entire game and blame everything on “The Killer”.
I am sure that agreement was always a thorn in Ukraines foot and many discussions were had with Briben on ways for Ukraine to gain economic traction to get their share of the pie through the massive sale of Russian energy flowing to Europe.
Joe’s continued favoritism with His and Hunters partners in the bribery scheme is costing the entire world as well as the lives of many innocent victims.
Joe’s desire to be the most “notable” president in history will obviously overshadow all the contributing factors that the current media and eventual “history writers” will certainly overlook.
As Joe says “there are the facts about the truth and then there are the lies about the truth…I am here to deliver the truth as I see it”
poopy-pants is the absolute worst POTUS in U.S. history. His job is to bring about the one-world (communist/muslim) government. Mark my words! His evil will be very difficult to undo, if much of it is even possible. What is more frightening is the number of people who agree with the idiot.
German arrogance is directly and indirectly responsible for all the crap which has happened in Europe for over 100 years.
Markel is the author of the social collapse of Europe. She encouraged and promoted the mass influx of illegals into Europe. Illegals with no interest in becoming part of European culture, but a desire to overwhelm and subvert it.
I usually agree with your comments but suggest you may want to dig a bit deeper. Germany has been in the middle of much conflict in Europe because Germany IS the middle of Europe. The German economy has driving much of Europe since 1950. Germans work fairly hard and save a lot of money; Germany has a very strong economy. Rather uniquely, Germany can look both to the West and also to the East. German politics is very complex. Germans have been thinking about a lot of things for a very long time. Germany is a Western nation without being a vassal of the United States. That bugs a lot of Americans. Angela Merkel and her Christian Democratic Party always wanted immigrants to fully integrate into Germany and learn German. The Social Democrats have been soft on that issue. Germany, IMO, has made mistakes on energy.
I find the views of Ambassador Grennell to be simply goofy. Blaming Germany for somehow taking away Ukraine’s leverage on the transmission of gas involves adoption of a belief that Ukraine’s geographic position is magical or unique. That doesn’t make much sense if one looks at a map. Russia has natural gas and Germany has and will continue to demand gas to replace nuclear power. Russia built Nordstream one and then Nordstream two. The Russians behaved rationally and the price and quantity were apparently OK for Germany. Ukraine doesn’t fit into that equation, and doesn’t produce much gas.
The German decision on nuclear power was a mistake. Natural gas will come from the US, Qatar and maybe Norway. Reflexively blaming Germany for things is a mistake. Blaming Germany for the Russia-Ukraine war just doesn’t work.
A voice of reason is a sea of blame and conjecture. Thanks for the thoughtful and detailed analysis.
Not sure why anyone is surprised that Putin invaded Ukraine as it is exactly what Putin said he was going to do 30 years ago. Blaming Germany is too convenient
I almost agree with you Frank (am I feeling okay??). I must quibble about the number and denial of Germany’s role – they did play a part as Kelly has written. The surprise part you have correctly.
I still stand with the people of Ukraine.
A large reason that Germany found itself reliant upon natural gas from Russia was because they oversaturated their electrical grid with “renewable energy”. They prematurely retired baseload fossil fuel and nuclear electrical generation and pursued one of, if not, the most aggressive “renewable energy” campaigns in the world. This premature movement to “decarbonize” has cost lives and will continue to do so unless, and until policy makers get out of the way and allow the free market to provide what is required. Europe becoming reliant upon the former USSR for their electricity and heating needs was a foolish idea from the get go, sadly they likely didn’t learn their lesson and we certainly didn’t learn it from them vicariously.
It’s funny how despite a vigorous “green” agenda, Germany still needed fossil fuels. And nuclear.
Since the need didn’t disappear while the ability to produce did, fossil fuels had to come from somewhere. Cue Russia.
Germany, and much of Western Europe have been giving their sovereignty to Russia for decades. One stupid decision at a time.
Germany depended on cheap, reliable and clean Russian natural gas to power its’ industry, the backbone of the EU’s economy. The CIA/EU 2014 Maidan coup to install a fascist one party state regime in Ukraine destabilized this utterly corrupt constructed “nation” with a plan to build a NATO armed and trained military to threaten the Russian Federation. From 2014 through February 2022 the Ukraine implemented a series of policies to discriminate against ethnic Russians, culture and language. The Donetsk region declared independence and local militias fought the US/EU supplied military to a stand off, with Ukraine shelling and terrorizing civilians in Lugansk and Donetsk. The Minsk accords/treaty was admitted to be a farce to buy time by our EU/NATO lap dog “allies” to arm Ukraine sufficiently to destabilize Russia and ultimately dismember that massive nation into regions dominated and resources exploited by the globalist western “leaders” who control our country and most of Europe. The “sanctions” have resulted in imploding the EU economies, while bolstering the BRICS alliance for countries to have an alternative for thriving economies free of US extortion and dependence, impoverishing common people and enriching the entities who are destroying Europe and the US. What is called a “service” based economy, outsourcing the manufacturing base and relying on foreign governments to buy treasury notes to keep this house of cards intact. The results are an utterly destroyed Ukraine, de populated (the forced conscription now includes males 17 to 70 and women as their male population is obliterated), elimination of US/NATO weapons and ammunition stocks, the largest state sponsored terror operation in history by the US destroying the Nordstream pipeline, Europe descending into economic chaos, while Russia builds up it’s military, technology, manufacturing and economy edging into 5% year end growth. The unfolding disaster is 100 X worse than what our illustrious leaders did in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Only a kernel of truth… mostly pompous bs. Your history must come from some conspiracy theorist. My Ukrainian friends (from Donetsk no less) tell a very different story of Russian destabilization and invasion.
Maybe the actual reason why Russia took action was the Western Ukrainian subjugation and oppression of Eastern Ukraine that included armed attacks and the systematic murder of its own citizens while the West ignored those human rights violations and used the corrupt Ukrainian government to launder millions, maybe billions for the benefit of our own corrupt politicians and bureaucrats. If Western nations had any moral or ethical foundation we’d band together to clean out the corruption in Ukraine to restore that country to its citizens…but that would require doing the same in our countries first and that’s obviously not going to happen.
We don’t need to be the world police and bank. Let the masses live as they want.
It’s all about the money that’s why everybody rather hates us because we lied and stole their wealth or we used power to make them do what we wanted.
The US needs to get out of the world’s problems as humans have been fighting since the beginning of time.
Look who is rich and powerful and then you will see whose responsable.
Re: Germany’s hesitancy with Russia.
I suspect it comes from two sources. First was the unpleasantness with Russia 80 years ago which ended up with Soviet occupation of half of Germany for 45 years. Second is energy. When you rely on Russia for your natural gas because you pandered to your greens, you allow them to grab your private parts, which they did.
No surprise Germany was careful, very, very careful. Cheers –
That’s rich! Blaming the Russia/Ukraine War on Germany, which for all practical purposes, has been a vassal state of the United States since the end of World War 2. No mention of failed American neo-con, and then, neo-liberal, foreign policy which led to the CIA backed overthrow of the duly elected Ukrainian President in a violent & bloody coup in 2014 designed to prevent that country from becoming too independent of American geo-political influence. Fast forward to February 2022, when neo-cons in Washington, DC, realizing that time was running out for their failed foreign policy in Ukraine decided to go all in. Today the USA is some 200 billion dollars poorer, sanctions against Russia were a failure, Russia’s army is stronger than ever, Russia has militarily aligned with China and the Ukraine is economically & physically devastated.
Is there anything you don’t blame on unnamed “neo cons”?
Germany was a “vassal state” of ours, the British, and the French (all neocons?) for a long time for a very simple reason.
They were at the heart of two world wars. Millions dead, uncountable damage. It took a long time to beat the fascism out of them. Once the west was certain history was unlikely to repeat, we pretty much bailed.
We have maintained a military presence there for decades because it was necessary to balance the post war world. But amazingly, they charted their own political course for decades-often working against our interests.
But when you are only capable of tossing out buzzwords with no real meaning, deeper concepts will allude you.
MA – You want names? I would think that anyone with half a brain would know by now who is responsible for the Russia/Ukraine debacle as some of them are still part of the sorry ass Biden administration we are stuck with today. Here’s some names though for those who haven’t been paying attention – Bill & Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Obama, Antony Blinken, Victoria Nuland, Jake Sullivan, Nancy Pelosi, Mitt Romney, Lindsey Graham & John McCain to mention a few.
Excellent article, Kelly. Your depth of analysis is so good, it makes one wonder how Lisa Murkowski could ever match you in a debate?
Your Harvard law school education shows up in spades.
Kelly does her own writing. Lisa has a hired staffer do her writing. Frankie probably had someone else sit for Lisa’s last bar exam too (#7). Kelly took the exam only once ,………
And passed.
No, Lisa sat for the bar exam. I just paid handsomely to prearrange for the exam questions through the bar prep classes. Otherwise, Lisa would be stirring noodles today with her house husband.
Ha ha. Lisa couldn’t make the cut in the kitchen either. I tried. The noodle stand was actually my suggestion, and House Husband tried it for a while as Lisa was taking the bar exams. Well, that went on for many years, but the noodle stand wasn’t paying the bills. Thank the Lord for Frankie’s big government pension checks.
That surprises me, Nancy, as Princess Lisa and limp noodles have so much in common.
She has two criminal violations to her name 😉 Lisa has none.
Shameless nut licker.
Kelly does her own writing. And Kelly and her Husband clearly understand how to cash State of Alaska and Municipal checks. We have talent here in Alaska that was passed over so these two lobbyists from DC could come here and cash in. Sad commentary.
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