WAR IN UKRAINEOne Year After: How Putin Got Germany Wrong
Vladimir Putin has made many strategic mistakes, but one misjudgment stands out: Germany. Putin considered Germany too dependent on Russian energy, too weak militarily, and too business-minded to mount any significant resistance to his war. He was wrong. Germany, once dangerously dependent on Russian energy, has defied Russian expectations in its reaction to war in Ukraine.
One year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the magnitude of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategic mistake is becoming clearer every day, but one misjudgment stands out: Germany. Putin considered Germany too dependent on Russian energy, too weak militarily, and too business-minded to mount any significant resistance to his war. He was wrong.
Energy Dependence
In the decade leading up to the February 2022 invasion, Russia became emboldened by the presumption that Germany valued its economic interests above all else. These interests were heavily tied to Germany’s significant reliance on importing cheap Russian natural gas. Its energy dependence on Russia continued to grow even after Russia annexed Crimea and sparked a war in eastern Ukraine in 2014, seemingly affirming Moscow’s thinking. When Russian troops invaded Ukraine early last year, Russia was providing just over half of all the natural gas consumed in Germany, worth about $220 million a day.
Military Aversion
Germany’s deep-seated aversion to the use of military force, rooted in its World War II history, fostered Russia’s misjudgment. In 2014, German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted that there was no military solution to the conflict in Ukraine and rejected suggestions that Germany provide weapons assistance to Kyiv. Germany’s mediation of the so-called Normandy Format from 2014 to 2022 between itself, Russia, Ukraine, and France confirmed Russia’s impression that Germany would prioritize diplomacy as its primary foreign policy approach. Russia expected that—beyond political rhetoric and economic sanctions—Germany would eventually defer to Russian dominance in Eastern Europe.
Putin’s German Past
Putin’s misperceptions were also shaped by his deep personal connections to Germany. He lived and worked as a KGB officer in Dresden for several years in the late 1980s, and he witnessed the mass protests that marked the final days of the German Democratic Republic and the end of the Warsaw Pact. He speaks fluent German and in 2001 delivered a speech in the German Bundestag—the first Russian head of state to do so—in German. He also has a close personal relationship with former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. After Schröder left office, he was appointed chairman of the board of Nord Stream AG and Rosneft, Russian-controlled energy companies. All this strengthened Putin’s belief that he knew and understood the inner workings of—what he believed to be predominantly business driven—German politics.
