Scholz’s party makes U-turn in its Russia policy

That’s according to Deutsche Welle, Ukrinform reports.

The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) has admitted mistakes in its own policy toward Russia in recent decades. Speaking at the party congress in Berlin on Saturday, SPD co-chair Lars Klingbeil called it a mistake “not to distance ourselves from the Putin system sooner” in connection with Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine.

The leader of the Social Democratic faction in the Bundestag, Rolf Mützenich, also admitted that he “completely underestimated” Putin’s imperial thinking.

Speaking at the congress, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that Russia, by attacking Ukraine in 2022, has completely destroyed mutual understanding about peace and security in Europe. “There needs to be clarity that borders in Europe can no longer be altered by force,” the head of the German government said.

According to Klingbeil, Russia has bid farewell to the system of common security and common values, so today “we are talking about organizing security from Russia.” This thesis is also recorded in the draft resolution of the Congress. While the 2021 election program said that “peace in Europe can be achieved not against Russia, but only with it,” the resolution discussed at the congress laid down the opposite meaning: “Until nothing fundamentally changes in Russia, security from Russia must be set up in Europe."

Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine shows "that we have not always correctly assessed the events of recent years," says the draft resolution presented by the party's board. The document recognizes as a mistake the long-held idea that strengthening economic ties will contribute to the democratization of Russia. This led to Germany becoming "unilaterally dependent on Russia in the field of energy policy."

“As long as Russia pursues its imperialist goal of conquest and oppression of sovereign states, there can be no normalization of relations with it,” the draft resolution of the SPD congress emphasizes.

Since Russia's all-out war in Ukraine began in February 2022, German Social Democrats have been accused of long underestimating the security threat posed by Moscow.