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Comment by toss1 | Hacker News Reader

Indeed, it came out of the Merkel government, which was notoriously Russia-appeasing, and while popular at the time, it's reputation is rapidly rotting under the gaze of recent history where Russia assaults Ukraine attempting to eliminate the very concept of Ukraine as an entity and independent people, and threatens all of Europe.

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Serious question: What brings people to write these comments? It's so tiresome. Always the same twaddle. Merkel was not notoriously Russia-appeasing, she was notoriously German industry appeasing. She didn't stop a business consortium of several large European energy companies from building a new pipeline to Russia, but neither did any leader of the other European countries involved, nor would have any other German chancellor at the time.

Merkel's active policy was making Germany dependent on Russian gas to the point where Russia thought that there was no way Germany would ever oppose their annexation of Ukraine.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/merkel-no-regrets-energ...

In fact, when Trump warned Germany of the risk their diplomats at the UN was laughing at him.

Merkel is a product of the cold war. For her NATO expansion that includes Ukraine was unthinḱable, and most people who lived through the cold war would agree. She never promoted NATO expansion. She thought that through careful diplomacy both peace and trade could be maintained. The US interfered in that.

More importantly, the EU has imported Russian gas through various land pipelines all the time. Nordstream was supposed to secure against various disputes where Ukraine stole Russian gas:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_dis...

"Naftogaz admitted that because of harsh winter (lower than minus 30C) some natural gas intended for other European countries was retained and used for domestic needs."

It was really Schroeder who got us into that mess, and gas heating for homes was already very popular in the 1990s in Germany (and none of the home owners really asked or cared where that cheap gas is actually coming from).

Trump was laughed at because it was obvious that he wanted us to buy US gas at a premium instead - not because he was 'concerned' about Germany's dependence on Russian gas (and also - of course - because he's a blithering idiot).

In any case, the discussion is about the Baltics getting more independent from Russia (hooray!), not about Germany :)

Many people are influenced by those USAID-sponsored trolls. Then they even act against their self-interest.

Yes, it is tiresome. There was this famous Trump video where he opposed NATO members on the question of Nordstream 2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JpwkeTBwgs

On social media it is spun as "the Germans laughed at him", when the person sitting in the middle opposite Trump is the Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg, NATO secretary and usually a willing US tool. It was all of Europe together.

See timestamp 0:52, i.e. the people behind the sign that says Germany. Not one of them is named Jens Stoltenberg.

https://youtu.be/eKEycjREgPE?si=fIYENA_4E6SQBxpA&t=52\

UN != NATO.

Merkel shut down cold the entire German nuclear power industry, and did not even allow it to do it by attrition; perfectly good plants were shut down.

This move advanced zero climate change mitigation goals, and strongly advanced Russia's agenda of making Germany dependent on RU energy supply. In fact, switching from nuclear to NatGas significantly undermines climate goals.

Keeping the nuclear baseline load and letting it wane by attrition while allowing a pipeline is one thing. Maximizing Germany's dependence on RU is another.

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