Our Man in Kiev

It’s been well known for some time now that Vitali Klitschko has been a propaganda tool, through use of popularity, of Germany (through the EU) to help wrestle the Ukraine away from Russia. It’s still uncertain how the situation will end up, but the fight is far from over. People think the end of World War I and World War II ended the rivalry, but it couldn’t be any farther from the truth.

See also: Round Two: EU Grooming Klitschko to Lead Ukraine (Spiegel Online)

KIEV/BERLIN (Own report) – According to press reports, the German government would like to have boxing champion Vitali Klitschko run for president and bring him to power in the Ukraine. It would like to enhance the popularity of the opposition’s politician by staging, for example, joint public appearances with the German foreign minister. For this purpose, a meeting is also planned for Klitschko with Chancellor Merkel at the next EU summit in mid-December. The Konrad Adenauer Foundation is, in fact, not only massively supporting Klitschko and his UDAR party. According to a CDU politician, the UDAR Party was founded in 2010 on the direct orders of the CDU foundation. Reports on the foundation’s activities for the development of Klitschko’s party give an indication of how Germans are influencing the Ukraine’s domestic affairs via UDAR. Berlin’s use of Poland in its policy toward the Ukraine is also increasing. Berlin and Warsaw are cooperating with the Ukrainian ultra right-wing Svoboda (“Liberty”) party, which stands in the tradition of Nazi collaborators, who massacred 100,000 Christian and Jewish Poles during WW II.

Regardless Who Wins

WASHINGTON/BERLIN (Own report) – Regardless of who will win the presidential elections in the United States, German political observers are not anticipating a change of course in U.S. foreign policy. “It is essentially immaterial who wins,” predicts an expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). That country’s “enormous economic problems” leave the next US president with “hardly any margin of maneuver.” And according to the CDU’s Konrad Adenauer Foundation, one can “more than likely expect a continuity, rather than a change” in the coming U.S. foreign and military policy. The Republican candidate, Mitt Romney’s aggressive rhetoric can “be considered, with good conscience, to be the baying of an electoral campaign.” Observers agree that Romney – like Obama – will reinforce US presence on China’s East and Southeast Asian periphery. It can also be assumed that he will continue the Democrat president’s drone wars, should he win the elections. Both will order military attacks on Iran, if Iran should equip itself with nuclear arms, the Adenauer Foundation predicts. Berlin must adapt itself to this situation.