HS interview | “We should already prepare for a change of power” – the West cannot get out of Russia, even if Putin falls

Berlin

Germany’s one of the most sought after Russia experts Stefan Meister runs up the stairs to his study. So you have to run after it.

in Berlin’s Tiergarten, German Foreign Policy Association (DGAP) premises in the former Yugoslavian embassy, ​​Meister is finishing a new article on the security situation in the Black Sea region.

You have to hurry, because Meister has been familiar with Russia and the issues of Ukraine, Belarus and the South Caucasus for years.

Last December HS interviewed him last time, and then Meister directly said what many would not have wanted to hear. Russian troops were still stationed outside Ukraine’s borders.

He said that Finland’s security is also at stake and Russia calls everything into question, including the security of NATO countries. If only he had exaggerated.

But it wasn’t like that. The situation is really bad now, and it can get much worse.

Meister’s according to it has now become clear that the Russian president has With Vladimir Putin “there are no limits”. Putin is ready to criminally annex large areas of land to Russia. He has already crossed so many “red lines” that anything is possible.

There is a new phase in the war. According to Meister, the threat of nuclear weapons must now be taken seriously. Russia may deploy nuclear weapons in its occupied territories in Ukraine, but it may also use them against the West.

“Whether it would flare up somewhere in the northern region or in some Ukrainian city, we don’t know.”

“A lot of what Putin says, he also does. But many of the things he says are propaganda and manipulation. Now we don’t know what is what.”

The West so you have to think carefully about what it does.

In Meister’s opinion, the US policy of not taking all the heaviest weapons it has requested to Ukraine is probably correct. Germany also refuses to export battle tanks requested by Ukraine, relying on the decision of the United States.

Ukraine is under complete brutal attack and its efforts to influence the West for help are intense. Still, the West must think about its own strategy, says Meister.

“I wouldn’t trust the president of Ukraine here to Volodymyr Zelensky“, Meister says.

Meister criticizes the German chancellor Olaf Scholz about the lack of leadership, but is still on the lines of the German government: the danger of escalation would increase even more if Ukraine possessed heavy weapons, the range of which would reach far into Russia.

“It would clearly increase the risk of using a nuclear weapon,” he says.

“Putin has already shown his readiness for escalation when he annexed the regions of eastern Ukraine to Russia and when he ordered the so-called partial implementation of the move,” says Meister.

Escalation would mean that the war would expand from Ukraine to Russia and the West.

The US strategy is to contain the risk by exporting only enough weapons to Ukraine to be able to hold its line and possibly win back its own territories.

According to Meister, the Western arms export line must live with the times, without rigid principles.

“At some point it will probably be necessary to export heavier weapons,” he says.

In social media videos are being circulated from Russia, where drunk or old men are going to war, carrying rusty weapons.

Meister says that he himself does not see the proposal as a joke. Russia should not be underestimated.

“Of course, some of the men are sent as cannon fodder, but it’s not enough to stop Ukraine,” he says.

It is therefore clear that a large number of new Russian soldiers will be trained in the coming months. The results of the training of the armed forces will probably be visible next summer, when the land has dried up after spring. So Russia is preparing for a long war.

“Two to five years,” Meister says, although he doesn’t like to give detailed predictions about the future.

There is a shortage of weapons technology in Russia due to the sanctions, but the army is not in a completely helpless mess.

Ukraine also has to get new soldiers all the time. They are currently being trained in Britain. London has set a goal of training ten thousand new Ukrainian soldiers every three months.

In the West according to Meister, there is no single way by which it could make the situation now change for the better.

What the West can do is stick to the sanctions and provide arms exports that help Ukraine but do not provoke Putin to start a nuclear war.

Thirdly, he mentions something that has been conspicuous by its absence: the West should prepare for the Russia of the future.

In Western Europe, scenarios should now be created about what is to come after the power in Russia changes. A change of power is necessary, and that is what the West should now try to promote.

According to him, that could happen by creating connections with the Russian elites, who can create pressure for a change of power. Russian intellectuals who left their country could be important partners for the West.

It is by no means a concession policy.

Meister’s think the president of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has formulated the matter well when he said that it is possible to negotiate with Russia and agree on a cease-fire – but only if Russia withdraws from the territories it has occupied.

These days, many strongly disagree, but according to Meister, isolating Russia now would be wrong. Even if Putin falls, Russia will not disappear.

“Complete isolation only strengthens the Russian security elite. Sometimes we have to try to integrate a new type of Russia into Europe.”

The end result of the war may also be a stalemate in Ukraine, and the immediate environment in Europe may become politically unstable in many ways.

“We have to prepare for how to deal with an even more aggressive and unstable Russia,” says Meister.

European countries could now prepare for the future by increasing arms production and improving their own defense capabilities, says Meister.

“The United States is weak, Germany is weak. NATO will become even more important,” he says.

Master doesn’t bring this up in the interview, but he is one of those experts who have been saying for years what Western politicians have done wrong in relation to Russia.

Poisonings and murders on EU soil were not responded to strongly enough.

Economic relations with Russia were indeed established, but it was forgotten that deterrence policy should have been taken care of as well.

“We accepted Russia’s conditions and made ourselves dependent on Russia.”

In addition to Germany, many Central European countries were equally blue-eyed, but Germany, of course, bears the greatest responsibility for the failure. According to Meister, it is still a bit unfair to blame everything on the former chancellor alone Angela Merkel.

Many countries, including Finland, are happy to enjoy the fruits of Germany’s economic growth as part of the Eurozone and as Germany’s trading partner.

Merkel’s big mistake was the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and gas dependence. He has not properly admitted this mistake.

This week, a video from 2018 has been circulating on social media. In it, representatives of the German government arrogantly laugh at the then US president For Donald Trumpwhich warned Germany against becoming dependent on Russian gas.

According to Meister, Germany still has so much to do to deal with its past mistakes that it is not ready to take a leadership role in Europe. Handling mistakes would require humility, but it is not visible.

“Scholz is not humble. He is a typical German politician who thinks he knows everything best anyway and does not take instructions. In addition, he is a weak leader,” Meister says of the current Chancellor.