WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) – Russia’s President Wladimir Putin Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) believes that the decision to launch a war of aggression against Ukraine was made well in advance. “I think the decision for this war was made a year before it started, or possibly earlier,” he said in an interview with the US broadcaster CBS, which was published in full on Sunday. “And so he will be able to continue the war for a very long time,” Scholz continued in English. The conversation took place after the NATO summit in Madrid, which lasted until Thursday.
Scholz also admitted that it was wrong to become unilaterally dependent on Russian energy in the past. “So we should have invested in an infrastructure across Europe that gives us the opportunity to change the offer from one day to the next,” said Scholz. That is a lesson that has now been learned in Europe. When asked how much money Germany is spending on energy from Russia, Scholz only replied that the amount is falling. Because of the sanctions, Putin cannot spend the money on products from the West – for example in the field of modern technology.
According to analyses, Russia made 93 billion euros in revenue from fossil fuel exports in the first 100 days of the war alone. A report published in mid-June by the Finnish institute CREA also revealed that among the individual states, Germany was the second most important customer after China, with 12.1 billion euros./nau/DP/nas