The German Foreign Minister is dissatisfied: despite Western sanctions, the Russian economy is growing, which cannot be said about the German economy

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock expressed disappointment with the impact of sanctions against Russia.

This reported by to Die Welt.

In a recent interview, she assigns blame for this failure not to herself or her mistakes:

“The logic of democracies doesn’t work in autocracies,” she says in a conversation with a journalist published in a recently released book. Nevertheless, she does criticize the federal government in general for not traveling to Kyiv enough.

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock doesn’t hide her frustration with the weak impact of the anti-Russian sanctions on Russia’s economy.

“In principle, economic sanctions should have economic consequences. But in this case, it’s not so. Because the logic of democracies doesn’t apply to autocracies,” Baerbock said in an interview with journalist Stefan Lambi, who was collecting material for his book “War: How to Rule in Wartime,” which was released recently. “We’ve seen that the rational decisions, the rational methods that civilized governments resort to, can’t stop the Ukrainian tragedy.”

Author and documentarian Lambi states that he conducted this interview on July 10th. He and his film crew have been following the key figures of the coalition government since they were sworn in on December 8, 2021, in the Bundestag. The resulting film will be aired on the ARD channel on September 11th, and Lambi’s 400-page book will be available for sale three weeks prior to that.

Western allied countries imposed harsh economic sanctions against Russia immediately after February 24, 2022. However, despite this, the Russian economy is growing, while the German economy, on the contrary, has been sliding into a recession since the beginning of the year. However, among Western economists, the popular opinion is that this growth in Russia is due to the economy’s shift towards military production and a sharp increase in the production of weapons and ammunition. Therefore, in their view, this growth will not be sustainable.

In her book, Baerbock criticizes the initial restraint of the federal government regarding trips to Kyiv. When asked by Lambi if she regrets anything during her time in office, she responded,

“Perhaps we should have traveled to Ukraine earlier and more often. We could have easily made such trips as members of the government.”

Baerbock became the first member of the German government to visit the conflict zone on May 10, 2022, two and a half months after the widespread panic at the end of February. By that time, many heads of state and government among Germany’s European allies had already visited Ukraine to show solidarity, as well as the opposition leader Friedrich Merz from the CDU. Meanwhile, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz only visited Ukraine for the first time in June 2022.