Vladimir Putin (left) and Gerhard Schröder, after the latter received an honoris causa from the University of Saint Petersburg.
Some feel cheated;
others, embarrassed.
There are also those who have opted for silence and who are now overreacting to try to erase from the memory of their fellow citizens the praises they launched not so long ago at Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The invasion of Ukraine has left the dozens of political leaders who have maintained close ties with the Kremlin in a delicate position.
Figures like Marine Le Pen in France or Matteo Salvini in Italy have accepted Russian money for their campaigns.
Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who defined Putin as an "impeccable democrat", went on to collect from the boards of directors of several Russian state-owned companies.
Over the years, Putin has managed to weave a network of support for his policies and his figure in Europe that went beyond promoting Russian economic interests.
"He has been mainly dedicated to attracting former leaders," explains Jörg Forbrig, senior analyst at the German Marshall Fund.
To do this, he has made use of succulent revolving door offers, as in the case of former French Prime Minister François Fillon, or two former Austrian chancellors, the conservative Wolfgang Schüssel and the Social Democrat Christian Kern.
In some cases, Forbrig notes, politicians sincerely believed that the West was misunderstanding Russia and were mediating with the best of intentions.
“Now most are very, very disappointed, they have revised their position and publicly admitted that they were wrong.
With one exception: Schröder,” he laments.
The statements of the former German chancellor, a personal friend of Putin, after the start of the invasion have infuriated and embarrassed his colleagues in the Social Democratic party in equal parts, who are considering expelling him.
All the workers in the office that pays him the public treasury in Berlin as former chancellor have resigned in protest at his lukewarmness.
"The war and the suffering of the people of Ukraine must end as soon as possible," he wrote on his LinkedIn, then temporized: "There have been many mistakes on both sides."
Turned into a pest in Germany, Schröder is reluctant to resign from his positions in the Russian state oil company Rosneft and two subsidiaries of the gas company Gazprom.
More information
War in Ukraine, last minute live
The German is left alone among
Putin's admirers and
lobbyists .
Kern has resigned from his position on the board of the Russian state railways and Schüssel from his at the oil company Lukoil.
Last week the conservative François Fillon, French Prime Minister between 2007 and 2017, also announced his resignation: the presence in two Russian companies compromised his party's candidate for the April elections, Valérie Pécresse, who does not share the affinity with Russia and he aligns himself with the president, Emmanuel Macron, in defending the positions of NATO and the EU.
The revelation of a fictitious employment case frustrated Fillon's campaign for the 2017 presidential elections, earned him a five-year prison sentence that he has appealed and removed him from politics, but he found shelter in Putin's Russia as a member of the boards of directors of the petrochemical company Sibur and the public oil company Zarubehne.
The Russian president has managed to place his allies.
The case of the former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl is striking, whose photo bowing to Putin on her knees at her wedding in 2018 has once again made the rounds on social networks these days.
A collaborator on the RT channel and an employee at Rosneft after leaving the first government of the conservative Sebastian Kurz, Kneissl has avoided a condemnation of the Russian invasion on her Twitter account.
Sympathy with the French extreme right
In France sympathy with Putin is located above all in the extreme right.
Marine Le Pen's National Regroupment (RN; former National Front) financed the 2014 regional and local campaign with a nine million euro loan from a Russian bank.
Before the 2017 presidential elections, Le Pen visited Putin in Moscow.
The surprise candidate in these elections, the ultra debater Éric Zemmour, was until a week ago a fervent admirer of Putin.
He advocated an alliance between France and Russia rather than the United States and was full of praise for the Kremlin strongman.
In a television program in January, he declared: “Vladimir Putin is not set limits.
He is a great head of state (...).
The claims and demands of Vladimir Putin are completely legitimate."
Marine Le Pen and Vladímit Putin, in 2019 in Moscow.M.
KLIMENTYEV (AFP)
On the extreme left, the proximity to Putin has not been due to ideological affinity, but with the argument that the responsibility for the crisis falls on NATO and the US rather than on Moscow.
“Do the Russians mobilize on their borders?
Who wouldn't do the same with such a neighbor [Ukraine], a country linked to a power that continually threatens them?” Jean-Luc Mélenchon (France Unsubmissive) declared to
Le Monde
newspaper in January, before the invasion.
The invasion forced these politicians to change their positions in a hurry.
All condemned the aggression.
The RN withdrew from circulation electoral pamphlets showing an image of Le Pen with Putin.
They fear that, in the campaign that is about to start, the proximity to the Russian president will ruin their aspirations.
Berlusconi's silence
Italy has always had a very high promiscuity with Russia.
From the times when the Italian Communist Party was the most important in Europe, through Silvio Berlusconi's intense friendship with Putin, to the flirtations of the populist Executive that formed the 5-Star Movement with La Liga in 2018. The image of the Russian trucks entering Bergamo in the midst of a pandemic to provide health and logistics aid showed the latest postcard of a tune that has translated in recent years into a succulent commercial exchange -7,000 million euros of exports to Russia and 12,600 million imports- and which now places two of Putin's last great admirers in an awkward situation: Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini.
Il Cavaliere
has had a close personal relationship with the Russian president since the time he was Prime Minister of Italy.
The newspaper library overflows with praise from the Italian tycoon towards Putin and exotic photos that show the almost familiar proximity between the two.
Today, however, Berlusconi is silent and Forza Italia, his party, votes in Parliament in the same direction as the rest when it comes to deciding on matters that concern the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In the formation they admit that the situation is delicate, but that, obviously, the Putin with whom Berlusconi built his solid friendship was different.
Salvini, on the other hand, has chosen to hyperreact.
The leader of the League, investigated for the alleged collection of Russian funds to finance his party, was in Moscow nine times in four years.
He was always the main opponent of trade sanctions against Russia and appeared in the European Parliament with a t-shirt with the face of Putin (he was also photographed in that guise in front of the Kremlin).
Now, however, he has started a strange campaign in which he goes daily to pray in front of the Ukrainian Embassy and has even offered to travel to Kiev to mediate for peace.
Salvini's social media messages are confusing and extravagant.
Some, even, are now swearwords against weapons of war, when his party was the promoter of favoring the possession of weapons for self-defense in homes in Italy.
With information from Sara Velert.
Follow all the international information on
and
, or in
our weekly newsletter
.
Exclusive content for subscribers
read without limits
subscribe
I'm already a subscriber
