Commenting on the tensions over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in an interview for RT that Germany remains under American occupation even after the end of the Cold War. Other NATO allies also have surrendered their sovereignty to Washington and therefore have no say in issues such as the Nord Stream 2 project, Zakharova said. “Germany, according to a number of relevant features—this is neither my opinion nor the Russian position, this is so according to politological terms and definitions—remains an occupied state in one way or another. Thirty thousand American troops are stationed there.”
Moreover, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said U.S. ambassadors in Berlin were giving orders to German government officials. As an example, Zakharova mentioned the behavior of the U.S. ambassador to Germany during Donald Trump’s Presidency. Richard Grenell had ordered the German government what to do regarding the Nord Stream 2 project.
According to Zakharova, Germany is being treated by the U.S. “simply as a protectorate,” its instructions to the Germans based not only on the leverage of financial threats, but also “on 30,000 American boots on the ground.” Why Berlin allowed itself to be treated in such a manner remains an open question for Germany, but, “The fact is that it is not a relationship between equals.”
The diplomat stressed that Germany was buying gas from Russia, not because Berlin was particularly fond of Moscow or because it wanted to please Russia, but solely because it needed this gas. German industrial development is vitally linked to this resource, Zakharova stressed. The fact that Washington is trying to get Berlin to buy liquefied natural gas from the United States instead, does not make it possible to speak of a free-market economy here. In this context, Zakharova pointed out that the government will eventually be forced to raise taxes for citizens in Germany, because the price of liquefied gas is much higher. “This is exactly what the U.S. has done to its closest allies, not to its rivals or enemies, but to its own NATO partners. No one has granted them any kind of independence or sovereignty.”
