Olaf Scholz is not a Kremlin stooge, he just leads a confused and unprincipled party.
The war in Ukraine has exposed the emptiness at the heart of Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) – the centre-left party which leads the current government. SPD chancellor Olaf Scholz has been on the defensive for weeks, as ever more damning news keeps emerging about the apparently close ties between top SPD functionaries and the Putin regime. Scholz’s initial reluctance to deliver heavy weapons to Ukraine angered both opposition politicians in Germany and European allies. Critics of the chancellor say his party has a ‘Putin problem’.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the SPD’s biggest headache has been the relationship between former SPD chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Russian president Vladimir Putin. Schröder is not only a personal friend of Putin – he is also a prominent lobbyist for Gazprom, the largely state-owned Russian gas giant. Schröder’s refusal to cut ties with Putin, or to resign from any of his roles with Russian energy companies, has made him a pariah.
