Nobel Prize laureate in literature (2009) Gerda Muller supports Ukraine.
La Repubblica:
“What is going on in Ukraine is terrific. The first step – Crimea’s annexation was unprecedented, but the destabilization of one of the most wealthy Ukraine’s region continues,” the writer says. “Putin is waging an anti-fascists’ propaganda, but his values are close to the ultra-right movements. He sees enemies everywhere, because every dictator needs foes to justify human rights violations. Putin is a master of destabilization: he has prepared employees, he nurtures separatists.
In fact, he doesn’t want to annex Ukraine, he simply wants to destabilize it in such a way, it can’t join the European Union. It is disgusting,”
Gerda Muller is sure. If public discussion that Stalin was a mass murderer and what Stalinism was in fact was held, Putin could not have a possibility to act as he acts now,” Muller points out. “There was a moment when we thought Russians had beaten ideology with perestroika and glasnost. The big country was divided into myriads of pieces, and it seemed it would be better. Today the idea of the Big Country is more actual than ever. The thing is that Putin has a disease called “the past”. All what happens in Ukraine is Putin’s soviet phantoms.” “Putin is highly appreciated, isn’t it sad?” the writer goes on. “I’m so surprised with people from Eastern Germany, who supports him. It is shameful. “The Wall” has fallen, they have all rights now. Those who came from the East, should be on Ukraine’s side. I got so furious, when people from former German Democratic Republic forget how it was to leave under dictatorship. All want to run away from dictatorship. Nobody wants to be in this Eurasian imperia, where Putin rules,” Muller says.
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www.repubblica.it
Western political trends. Putin tries to escalate the relationship between the U.S. and Germany. He becomes more active in the U.S. sphere of influence – Latin America.
The latest U.S. spying scandal could lead to severance of diplomatic relations.
Time:
Putin’s more likely goal was to make the members of the NATO alliance suspect each other of spying and, ultimately, to erode the trust on which that alliance is based. “Already the fallout from Germany’s latest spy scandal with the U.S. seems to have achieved something close to that very outcome, and if it leads to a rupture in their relationship, Putin will surely be able to allow himself a mischievous smile,” Shuster concludes. “The information reaped by this suspected espionage is laughable,” Thomas de Maiziere, the German Minister of Interior, said in a statement. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said that Chancellor Angela Merkel is “not amused” by the latest scandal. “Neither is the diplomatic corps in Washington.” Shuster states. “With the West locked in its worst dispute with Russia since the Cold War, the U.S. and Europe need to form a united front against the Kremlin more now than at any point in a generation.”
time.com
The real U.S. offense isn’t the spying so much as doing it so poorly.
The Wall Street Journal:
Journalists demand Congress intelligence committee to do a deeper dive into the German cases and post a question, “why our friends not think they can expel a U.S. official and pay no price for it.”
online.wsj.com
Angela Merkel should change her attitude toward Edward Snowden and grant him a political asylum.
Süddeutsche Zeitung
www.sueddeutsche.de The former German minister of defense Karl-Theodore zu Guttenberg wrote in the article for Bild newspaper that Obama risks to evoke anti-American attitudes in Germany. According to his words, if American president does not change “his political habits” and continues staying aside with a smile on his face, he will risk to go down in history as a person who put a transatlantic friendship at an end.
Bild:
www.bild.de
U.S . and Germany are on the verge of “a diplomatic war”.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
www.faz.net
U.S. humiliates Germany once more. “The bitter truth is that the relationship between U.S. and us resembles the relationship between a dog and its master.”
Spiegel.
www.spiegel.de
Marcel Dickow, from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in an interview for The Local says ordering America’s top spy to leave Berlin was “unprecedented” in the German-US relationship. He underlines that it won’t have a negative long-term effect on German-US relations.
The Local
www.thelocal.de
During six-day tour through Latin America Russian leader “will attempt to strengthen support for his new readiness to confront the West on the global stage.”
The Times:
Putin’s meeting with Fidel, “a revolutionary who has been condemning American influence on the world for more than half a century” will be resonant.
www.thetimes.co.uk
Putin’s visit to Cuba is coincident with the battle about gaining control over Ukraine, the article continues. “It seems the intervention of North American diplomacy at the backyard of Russia combines with the gradual penetration of Moscow in the back office of the U.S. – Latin America, governed by the left, especially in Cuba, 145 kilometers off the coast of Florida. ”
El Pais:
Putin will meet Raul Castro and his brother Fidel, the main protagonists of the Cold War period when the communist island was a key strategic figure in a “chess play” between the United States and the Soviet Union, the edition underlines. Putin arrives in Havana with another nod, having forgiven 90% of the debt owed by Cuba during his nearly three decades of dependence on Moscow, around 26,000 million euros.
internacional.elpais.com
Putin will try to make a nuclear agreement during his visit to Argentina.
La Nacion:
Putin’s trump card is to sign an ambitious nuclear agreement and to expand a bilateral commercial relationship with Argentina, the newspaper writes. Moreover, Putin’s visit is the result of the vast agreement between Putin and his counterpart Christina Kirchner,” the newspaper writes. During the voting at the UNO Assembly, where the majority stand against Moscow’s plan toward Ukraine, Argentina abstained. “Kremlin, in its turn, supported the sovereignty claim of Argentina in the Falkland Islands.”
www.lanacion.com.ar
Analysts say the gigantic Vaca Muerta shale formation in remote Patagonia is the motive behind both Chinese and Russian interest in Argentina, while Buenos Aires desperately needs foreign investment to develop what are the world’s second biggest shale gas reserves and fourth largest shale oil reserves.
www.ft.com
The Situation over signing the Association agreement between Ukraine and EU is escalation: Russia is seeking for the reasons to block the agreement, Brussels proposes (unofficially) Ukraine to sign the Agreement in the first turn.
Americans think the EU is begging Russia not to be afraid of the Agreement between Ukraine and EU.
The Wall Street Journal:
Under Friday’s agreement, Russia will present a list of concerns and “potential risks” about the deal by July 20. Technical experts are expected to meet to provide a “preliminary report” by Sept. 1. Ministers from the EU, Russia and Ukraine will meet again on Sept. 12 in Brussels to iron out any remaining differences. Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulukayev said after Friday’s talks that he hoped the agreement wouldn’t enter into force before the negotiations are completed.
online.wsj.com
Russia at the talks in Brussels over trade aspects of the Agreement between Kyiv and EU seeks for putting “new veto on the agreement.”
EUObserver is warning that on Friday a Ukrainian diplomatic source told EUobserver “this is once again vivid proof about the real intentions of the Russian Federation”. An EU diplomat noted that nothing could change Brussels’s opinion and the EU is still against Russia’s veto. “It’s not certain we will issue any kind of joint statement after tomorrow’s meeting,” the official added. The edition reminds Poroshenko promised Ukraine’s parliament would vote on ratification before it breaks for summer.
euobserver.com
Ukraine’s new leader is making progress in regaining control over eastern areas of the country that were seized by Russian-backed insurgents, but he’s getting no help from the United States or the European Union.
The Washington Post:
“If he has been surprised by Mr. Poroshenko’s grit, then Mr. Putin can only be encouraged by the fecklessness of the European Union and the United States,” the edition states. “At the end of June, the allies promised tough sanctions against Russia if Moscow did not immediately stop its support of the rebels. Two weeks later, the promised “sectoral” sanctions on Russian industries have not been adopted, even though Western governments agree that Mr. Putin has not met any of their conditions. The United States has the power to impose crippling unilateral sanctions on Russia, especially through the banking system. If the Ukrainian government can act without the permission of France and Germany, so can the United States.”
www.washingtonpost.com
Putin still sticks to his guns. As London’s edition informs, he wants by “havoc, destructions, uproars and casualties…makes Donbas reunion with Ukraine impossible.”
Economist:
British edition calls for the West to support Petro Poroshenko’s promise to prolong a truce by “redoubling their pressure on the Kremlin”. The newspaper is sure the sanctions’ aim is to force Putin to step back from the eastern Ukraine, where he continues support and fortify separatists.
The West’s reticence has contributed to Ukraine’s tragedy, which could expand, London’s Economist states.
www.economist.com
Minister Klimkin tries to explain to Germans why it is hard to hold talks with separatists.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung proposes to read an interview with Ukraine’s foreign minister Pavel Klimkin. Klimkin commented on his German counterpart’s initiative to prolong talks with separatists. He said Ukraine tries to make arrangements with separatists, but even the video conference is impossibly due to their fault. Minister underlines Ukrainian authorities do not have the direct contact with DPR’s minister of defense Igor Strelkov, but they do have contacts with self-proclaimed Prime Minister Oleksandr Borodai. Klimkin praises Ukraine army’s success in recapturing Slovyansk and Kramatorsk by saying that “with army’s arrival, cities receive water and electricity supply.” Ukrainian authority does not pose a threat to the Russian speaking Ukrainians “We are ready to pay for our European future, and we pay to be free,” minister underlines.
www.faz.net
On 9 July in Vienna the Foreign Ministry’s Plenipotentiary for Human Rights, Konstantin Dolgov, presented “White Book” report, which contains publications from Russian and foreign newspapers, which should illustrate “human rights violation by Ukrainian authorities in east of Ukraine”
Die Presse:
diepresse.com
