German Ambassador Ruge: Friendship With Russia Will Not Return

Germany's ambassador to Ukraine, Boris Ruge, has said that friendship with Russia will not be restored, rejecting calls to renew ties with Moscow and to supply Russian energy to Europe through Ukraine in the name of lasting peace. He made the remarks in an interview with European Pravda, as reported by Ukrainska Pravda on Saturday, October 24.

Ruge said the history of German relations with Russia after 1991 is a clear example of what went wrong. In his words, Germany was terribly mistaken.

"We were wrong"

"We were wrong to think we could develop a partnership with Russia. Russia rejected the partnership we offered and became an aggressive imperialist player that aims to fundamentally change the whole political order of Europe," Ruge said.

He noted that Germany and the rest of Europe had then done a great deal to build constructive and positive relations with Russia. "The Russia-NATO Council, the energy partnership and so on... But Russia simply threw that out the window and chose war, hybrid attacks, and interference in the information space and in politics instead. That attempt of ours failed," the diplomat said.

"What matters is that we sincerely worked to build forward-looking relations with Russia. So when someone in Europe, including in Germany, says today that we should build positive relations with Russia again, those people have evidently forgotten that we spent 20 years doing exactly that, and it led us to a huge defeat," he explained.

Energy as the biggest failure

According to Ruge, the biggest failure was in energy. It used to be believed, he said, that Western Europe's role as a large export market for Russia would give Moscow an interest in preserving peace and positive relations. "But Putin's vision is completely different. So we will not go back to that. I do not believe this will find support among the majority in Germany," Ruge said.

He also expressed the view that in Western Europe there are very few people willing to put themselves in any kind of dependence on Russia again.

Ruge also believes that, in the context of Russia's war against Ukraine, genuine peace talks have not taken place because only the Russian side does not want peace. Earlier this week, as we reported, he said that Ukraine is already part of Europe's defense. More Ukraine coverage is in our world news section.