As Ukraine faces renewed Russian offensives in spring, Kyiv is more reliant than ever on its allies in the West. Despite this, Germany continues to avoid concrete decisions on providing weaponry. Berlin must now take decisive action if it is to remain the so-called unofficial leader of Europe.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine caught Germany completely unprepared. Berlin was entangled by a web of mutual economic and political relationships with Moscow. The attitude is slowly changing and the aid to Ukraine is flowing. Germany still has problems with breaking an attitude of appeasement and seeing the aggressor for what it is, explains Franziska Davies, a historian of East European history at the University of Munich, in a conversation with John Beauchamp, a long-time radio journalist and the voice of the Warsaw Metro.

Any normalisation of relations with Russia will only take place once Moscow gives up its imperial ambitions and pays for its crimes. There should be no notion of a new policy towards the Kremlin without change at the top and the complete removal of its threat to European security. We cannot repeat the mistakes of 1991.

Germany’s post-reunification Ostpolitik has ended in a national and European disaster. A policy that was supposed to foster peace, stability and reconciliation has resulted in war and an energy crisis. This is not to say that Germany is to blame for the aggression against Ukraine. The responsibility clearly lies with the criminal policies of Vladimir Putin and his regime. Nevertheless, Berlin needs to accept that post-reunification Ostpolitik, especially in the last 15 years, helped to enable the Kremlin to pursue its attacks on neighbours.

Germany does not envisage Ukraine joining the European Union any time soon, let alone NATO. What then is it willing to offer as part of its announced co-operation? Where do they see Ukraine in the European security architecture and prosperity, asks Anna Kwiatkowska, an expert of the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW)

Germany’s proceedings around Nord Stream 2 will not only hurt this country, but also European common policy as a whole from a security point of view. Additionally, they are undermining Germany’s already-fragile position as the European mediator and dealmaker.

The debate among German foreign policy experts on how to end the crisis with Russia has heated up once again. Yet, many observers continue to neglect the primary determinants of Russian foreign policy, which are rooted in domestic politics and are not going to change any time soon.

The Russian military exercise “Zapad 2017” held on the borders of NATO member states showed a significant increase in Russian forces in the Baltic Sea region. Just like during the Cold War, this exercise had the goal of demonstrating Russia’s military might to the West – the country’s alleged enemy. With the illegal annexation of Crimea as well as the destabilisation of eastern Ukraine, Russia and the West have manoeuvred towards an increasingly militarised confrontation. Moscow’s questioning of the European security order marked the climax of the alienation and antagonisation that started much earlier. With Vladimir Putin’s 2007 speech at the Munich security conference, where he accused the West of systematically countering Russia’s interests in the region, as well as the Russian-Georgian war in 2008, it became clear that Russia is defining its interests in opposition to the West. Russia does not want to be integrated into the West but has the ambition to further integrate former Soviet states into its orbit.