German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been repeatedly criticized for speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin last month. Yesterday, during in the Bundestag, a Christian Democratic MP again tried to put Scholz on the defensive, but Scholz provided one of his not-so-defensive responses: “Everybody knows that it would be absurd and a sign of unbelievable political weakness, if we in Germany and in Europe now waited for others to conduct these phone conversations, and we sort of commented on the news shown on TV.” Scholz went on to explain that the West must not let differences of opinion get in the way of such necessary interchanges with Russia.