Der Spiegel backs Russia, Nord Stream 2: opinion
PR dla Zagranicy
Victoria Bieniek
15.05.2018 11:25
A group of reporters from German weekly Der Spiegel have been slammed by a journalist from Poland’s Defence24 news portal for trying to justify Russia’s political moves and backing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
![The Kremlin. Photo: Ludvig14 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://external.polskieradio.pl/files/cfd03dd3-fc18-4d02-8c10-961a8eb1cc0f.file "The Kremlin. Photo: Ludvig14 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons")
The Kremlin. Photo: Ludvig14 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
According to the Polish journalist, Jakub Weich, the May 9 article entitled: The Great Divide – Is Germany's Special Relationship with Russia Ending? also urged the German government to accept a Russian “sphere of influence” over former USSR countries.
Der Spiegel said past Russian aggression had been “the result of a feeling of being encircled by the West. And for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, all means are justified when it comes to breaking that encirclement.”
Weich said the statement was “especially painful and hurtful to Poles and Ukrainians” and that Der Spiegel’s journalists were “distorting history” and trying to remove any blame from Russia.
“How can one justify Russian aggression [in Poland] in 1920 and 1939 with ‘a sense of encirclement’,” Weich said, also referring to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and aggression in Ukraine’s east.
Weich also said that, by writing that ”Putin wants the West to finally accept that Moscow regards the former states of the Soviet Union … as part of Moscow's sphere of interests,” Der Spiegel suggested that German pragmatism should mean Ukraine is left to Russia's mercy.
Weich said that the Der Spiegel article, published “during an internal crisis in the European Union, casts a shadow over all of Berlin’s attempts to keep the bloc from falling apart”.
Weich also criticised Der Spiegel’s journalists for saying that Nord Stream 2 is “economically lucrative”.
According to Weich, the planned pipeline’s cost is yet to be determined and threatened by the European Union’s gas directive and possible US sanctions.
He said the price would include the political cost of increased Russian influence in Central and Western Europe.
Nord Stream 2 is to send gas from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea, circumventing Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic states. (vb)