Angela Merkel’s nuclear folly fuelled Putin’s ambitions in Ukraine – by David Welch (Globe and Mail – April 28, 2022)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

For every euro of military aid that Germany has given to Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s invasion, it has paid €200 for Russian energy imports. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called this “blood money.” Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski recently declared it “inadmissible from a political and moral point of view.”

It is also tragic and unnecessary. For this, we can blame former German chancellor Angela Merkel. Germany finds itself in an awkward position because of its heavy dependence on Russian coal, oil, and natural gas.

While it has done an impressive job in recent years of shifting to renewable energy sources, fossil fuels still account for 77 per cent of Germany’s total consumption, and Russia is by far its single largest source (34 per cent in 2021).

Berlin has managed to cut almost a third of its Russian energy imports since the invasion began on Feb. 24, but officials say that it could take two years to wean the country off the source completely.

For the rest of this column: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-angela-merkels-nuclear-folly-fuelled-putins-ambitions-in-ukraine/