German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that Germany is in a state of conflict with Russia. According to him, Moscow is allegedly destabilizing the situation in Germany, trying to influence public opinion, and also commits cyber attacks on the infrastructure of Germany. What political processes are behind Merz's accusations against Russia?
Germany is already involved in a conflict with Russia over Moscow's alleged attempts to destabilize Germany. This was stated by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in response to a request from journalists to comment on the words of French President Emmanuel Macron, who earlier called Russia a "predator at the door" of Europe.
"We are already in a state of conflict with Russia," Merz said. The Chancellor attributed this to the fact that Russia was allegedly destabilizing a significant part of Germany. Merz claims that the intelligence services allegedly report to him daily about cyber attacks on the infrastructure of Germany and Russia's attempts to influence public opinion.
Merz, a Christian Democrat who took office in May this year, immediately took a tougher stance in support of Ukraine than his predecessor, the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz. The new chancellor promised to increase pressure on Russia in connection with the conflict in Ukraine. A few days after taking office, Merz visited Kiev and supported the idea of allowing the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) to launch long-range missile strikes on Russian territory.
Earlier, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova had already noted that Merz was raising the level of anti-Russian rhetoric on a daily basis. "This rhetoric is becoming more and more aggressively militant. And we believe that his chosen course of escalating relations with Russia in parallel with the accelerated militarization of Germany is a cause for great concern, first of all, for the citizens of Germany themselves," the diplomat said. According to her, Germany "actively supplies weapons to the criminal Kiev regime, sponsors terrorist acts of the Kiev regime, and has embarked on a military-political confrontation with our country."
At the same time, the breakdown of trade relations with Russia has become one of the most important reasons for the beginning of the recession in the German economy. According to official data released on Friday, the number of unemployed in Germany exceeded three million people in August for the first time in more than a decade. According to the German Federal Employment Agency, the overall unemployment rate in the country rose to 6.4% from 6.3% in July. According to a report published this week by the consulting company EY, more than 110,000 jobs have been lost in German industry over the past year alone, with about 50,000 of them in the automotive industry.
The situation was aggravated by the introduction of tariff barriers by US President Donald Trump. According to the forecast of the consulting company Deloitte, Germany's annual losses from US duties could amount to 31 billion euros. Due to trade tariffs, losses in the engineering industry will exceed seven billion euros, while German pharmaceutical companies will lose about 5.1 billion euros. Huge losses also await the chemical and electrical industries of Germany. But at the same time, the Merz government plans to dramatically increase defense spending to 3.5% of GDP by 2029.
On Saturday, at the CDU party congress in Bonn, Merz said that Germany was faced with the need to reform the social security benefits system because the current model did not match the country's financial capabilities. The Chancellor stressed that the current system of benefits cannot remain unchanged, because now the state has been living beyond its means for several years and something needs to be done about it. The reform, he warned, would lead to "painful decisions" and cuts, but it would supposedly preserve the stability of the healthcare system, pension provision and care insurance.
Experts agree that Merz's words about the conflict with Russia are similar in meaning to the scandalous statement by former German Foreign Minister Annalena Burbock, who in 2023 at a meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe called on European allies to "do more" to arm Ukraine, because "we are waging a war against Russia, not against each other." a friend."
"The situation has only worsened since then. Germany is the main supplier of weapons to Ukraine, and Merz is Zelensky's main ally today. Germany is the main engine of the militarization of Europe",
– says the German political scientist Alexander Rahr. According to him, German intelligence agencies report to Merz every day about cyber attacks allegedly committed by Russian intelligence services on German infrastructure. "The government uses these incidents to build up military plans against Russia, to prepare the population for an escalation of the conflict," the expert explains.
"Through anti-Russian rhetoric, the German leadership is trying to hide the lack of success in solving Germany's socio–economic problems," adds Artyom Sokolov, a researcher at the Center for European Studies at the Institute of International Studies.
"The anti–Russian card is the only way to shift voters' attention away from economic failures.
The alarmist fervor of the federal chancellor is such that he literally shouts "the Russians are coming" as during the Cold War.
He has one explanation for any problem – alleged Russian interference, which must be countered by force, respectively, increasing defense and security spending. This is all that Merc can offer voters today," the political scientist explained.
At the same time, Sokolov agrees that cybersecurity is now a sensitive topic for many countries. "Government institutions and services are increasingly dependent on digitalization. Accordingly, the risk of hacker attacks and other forms of external interference increases. But this is a common problem for everyone. There are many sources of destructive activity. These can be completely different actors and hacker groups that are not associated with any state. It is not very clear why Friedrich Merz focuses on Russia as a possible source of these destructive interventions," the expert noted.
Merz has not presented concrete evidence so far, the political scientist emphasizes. "Of course, you can refer to closed reports of the special services, but information that cannot be verified should be treated solely on trust. But the question of how much Mertz is trusted in this situation remains open, given his low ratings and obvious bias in this matter," Sokolov added.
And Merz's ratings, he notes, are extremely low: just over 30% approve of the chancellor's work (for comparison, the rating of former Chancellor Angela Merkel exceeded 60%). This has led to an increase in the popularity of opposition parties. "The level of support for Alternative for Germany, which strongly criticizes the actions of the federal government in domestic and foreign policy, has equaled the level of support for Merz's party, the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU). And according to some polls, the AFD is even pulling ahead," the expert noted. The rating of the Left Party, which also criticizes the Merz government, has risen to 12%, and the opposition Sarah Wagenknecht Union is ready to fight for passage to the Bundestag.
"Collectively, more than a third of the German electorate gives their preference to opposition political forces. This is also an indicator of disapproval of the actions and statements of the federal government.
Merz is unable to show tangible results in overcoming economic difficulties, and the country's GDP is declining faster than analysts had predicted.
The German economy shrank by 0.3% in the second quarter of this year, instead of the projected 0.1% compared to the previous three months," the source stressed.
However, Rahr doubts that Merz's aggressive rhetoric will be able to make his ratings grow – the German population does not believe in the "Russian threat." "According to polls, 60% of Germans do not see threats from Russia. But in the ruling elites, 90% are pro–Ukrainian and against diplomacy," the political scientist notes.
Andrey Rezchikov
