Up until this point Angela Merkel, and German media in general, had been staunchly on the side of the west when it comes to dealing with Russia, Putin and realpolitik in broader terms. That changed dramatically today when Gabor Steingart, the chief editor of Handelsblatt, Germany‘s leading economic newspaper, came out with a stunning op-ed, in German, English and Russian, titled simply that „The West on the wrong path“ in which the editor comes out very vocally against the autopilot mode German media has been on for the past several months and calls for an end to a strategy of sanctions and Russian confrontation that ultimately „harms German interests“ and is a dead end.

Some of the „must read“ excerpts: