The trusting relationship between Chancellor Merkel and the US was terminally destroyed by the Snowden and subsequent US spying revelations. As a result, Germany is now both politically willing and economically able to pursue its own energy diplomacy on whatever terms Merkel thinks fit. Crimea is ethnically Russian; was the subject of an internal transfer to Ukraine within the USSR by Khrushchev; and whatever the US and UK choose to make of it, Merkel is quite prepared to cede it to Russia in exchange for suitable guarantees.
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 12:23:47 +0000