Poland and the Baltic states also remain under threat.
The West must understand that the president Russia's Vladimir Putin will not stop in Ukraine. If the aggressor is not repelled, other European countries will be under direct threat, according to German historian Heinrich Winkler. “At least since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, his goal has been to restore the Soviet sphere of influence. If the West does not resolutely fight back, and Putin succeeds in Ukraine, the West will be under direct threat. Putin must be made to understand: an attack on a NATO member will be considered a challenge to the Alliance,” Winkler emphasizes in an interview with Welt.
The historian believes that Germany should have adopted a tougher policy towards Russia a long time ago. Starting with the Bucharest summit in 2008, at which then German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy blocked the membership of Ukraine and Georgia in NATO, and ending with the construction of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline ».
Winkler considers Germany's participation in this Russian project, contrary to the warnings of Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states, to be a serious strategic mistake. The gas pipeline was never purely a business project, the Russian leader always considered it as a way to leave Ukraine without gas transit, he reminds.
“The West protects itself when it helps Ukraine resist Russian aggression. Everything the West does to thwart Putin's plans serves his own security. If the policy was different, the next victims of aggression could be NATO members, first of all the three Baltic republics – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania,” the historian added.
Heinrich Winkler believes that the current German government should “work on the mistakes” of its predecessors and start building a new policy of relations with the Russian Federation.
Read also: Putin humiliated Merkel and saddled Schroeder: what should Germany do now
Ukraine's successes on the battlefield against the background of tough international sanctions against Russia have already created a situation in which within a few years, if everything goes as it is, Russia will suffer a strategic defeat. But Ukraine should win not in a year or a few years, but right now. And for this, excessive tension of the partners' forces is not required. Read more in Oleksiy Izhak's article “How to defeat Putin's troops in Ukraine” in ZN.UA.
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