Germany's Russian Rethink: How Merkel Lost Faith In Putin -- Noah Barkin, Reuters
(Reuters) - On a Sunday in early March, a day after Vladimir Putin won parliamentary backing for an invasion of Ukraine, Angela Merkel called him to demand an explanation. The German leader was shaken by what she heard, sources within her party say.
For weeks, in a series of phone calls, the Russian president, speaking mainly in the German he perfected as a KGB agent in East Germany, had assured the chancellor he would respect the territorial integrity of his western neighbor and had no plans to intervene militarily.
Merkel, in turn, had been preaching caution on punishing Russia in her talks with the United States, hopeful that Putin would eventually back down and accept proposals to ease the crisis.
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My Comment: The U.S.-Russian reset is dead .... but one can also now say that the Russian-German special relationship between Merkel and Putin is now kaput.
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