Enlarge image
SPD chairman Lars Klingbeil
Photo: Michael Kappeler / dpa
Four months ago, Russian troops invaded Ukraine, which came as a surprise to many in Germany.
In retrospect, SPD leader Lars Klingbeil is critical of Germany's Russia policy.
»We conducted the security policy debate in Germany the way we would have liked the world to be – but not the way it really was and is.«
In an interview with the Saturday edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Klingbeil said: "The war in Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the poisoning of Alexej Navalnyj, the murder of the Tiergarten - all the warning signs were there, but we should have interpreted them differently .«
The biggest reproach Germany has to make is that it has not heard enough from the eastern EU countries.
"We assumed that conflicts can be resolved through negotiations and talks," he said.
"It was inconceivable that a country like Russia would once again act as an imperial great power and want to assert its ambitions militarily."
Klingbeil assured that Germany would not reduce its support for Ukraine now, despite cut Russian gas supplies.
“We won't be blackmailed.
We stand in solidarity with Ukraine, deliver weapons, maintain the sanctions," said Klingbeil, whose party forms the governing coalition together with the Greens and the FDP.
Nothing will change about that.
"But times are going to be tough for us." One can see these days that Russian President Vladimir Putin is also hitting back with the throttling of gas.
Putin is challenging the unity of the West and Europe.
mgo/AFP/dpa