her answers for 2 years, the author accompanies a cell of his family in northern syria. insights into the isolated world of radical islamists, a film about family, faith, masculinity, of fathers and sons starts april 16th on d, w. ah, russia is pulling back its forces north of ukraine's capital, but that has brought horror rather than relief as indications of a civilian massacre come to light. the devastating images from the town of boucher indicate that proteins forces murdered hundreds of civilians before withdrawing that sparking new calls for harsher sanctions, including an embargo on russian fossil fuels. so far, germany's been resisting, fearing massive harm to an economy, highly dependent on russian gas. the predicament is prompting

a new look at politicians who enabled that dependence. and we're asking russian war crimes, the end of german illusions. welcome to to the point. it's a pleasure to welcome our guests multi leaning is author and lead editor at the berlin daily target spiegel. and it's a pleasure to welcome matthew conditioning. he is chief europe correspondent for politico, and also glad to have with us claudia, comfort. she is head of the department of energy, transportation, and environment at the german institute for economic research. and i'd like to start by talking a little bit about what we think is happening on the ground. and matthew, what's your interpretation of the russian troop? pull back, what do you think putins next move could be?

well, it certainly looks like he's trying to re gather his troop strength and reposition them in the east to kind of launch a new attack from the easton and get what they can because it was clear that they weren't going to succeed in in surrounding cubes. and taking it over, so i think yeah, there, there regrouping as it were, and it's something the ukrainians are certainly worried about because they've been fighting russia in the east. obviously for the past, for the past years, claudia and ukraine possesses the 2nd largest gas reserves in europe. and much of that is in fact, in the eastern part of the country, leading some experts to conclude that putin may well be looking to establish full control over those reserves. is this war ultimately, all about fossil fuels? yeah, we are in the middle of a fossil fuel war and that's for sure, because russia has the largest reserves and oil, coal,

and i guess on earth. and also there is an interest clearly and, and just, and also having the gas or using or exploring the gas that is located in the ukraine. so for sure that might be one reason. it's not the, the pure reason or the 1st reason, but there is a reason and fossil fuel plays a key role. and here, at any rate, the russian reorientation of troops has now allowed these images to come to light from the town of butcher images that appear to show that a civilian massacre occurred there. monta back in january, prior to the beginning of the war, you warned against western weapons deliveries to russia, saying they could cause putin to take even harsher aggress aggressive moves. do you think that's what we're seeing here in these images from, from butcher to things have changed? i mean, if you start to war those different logic,

so i would be in favor know of weapons delivery to the ukraine. so the, to the connected self defense, self defense to something else than preparing for war and preparing for war, you have different kind of logic. so what happens though, i think you see is a battle as well about fossil fuels. but above lexi, i mean, we have the, the, the crimean and the black sea. we have odessa, well, you pull all these, all the centers to owning, and the black sea is so delicate because we have to nato members will go your domain, you know, with huge borders to the black sea native could have of could drive into the black sea but then they will come to wanting russia. so this will be very, very delicate moment of the next weeks to come. we are so no, of course, there russia has been laying siege to marry a pool. we don't yet know the full extent of damage and, and killings there. but matthew, if you look at these images from a butcher,

which of course are only possible because the russian forces had withdrawn. how certain can we be? first of all, that it was russia that committed these murders, and secondly, that this amounts to war crimes. well, i think we have service saying that you know what we're crimes are always very difficult to prove in court. but i think to any thinking person, we also, you know, have common sense. and if you look at the evidence there, if you look at the satellite images taken before the russians left, that the new york times has studied and confirmed show. the bodies were lying there on the street before the russian troops left. i think it's pretty clear that number one war crimes were committed. there can be no doubt about that. and i would say it's very, very likely that the russians are responsible for this. i don't think that any person who looks at the evidence objectively could come to to another conclusion at

this stage. whether that can be proved in court, of course, is, is another matter. but i think that the west has to react to this, assuming that russia is responsible. and i think that's what's, what's happening now. although, you know, many western government still aren't willing to go as far as the ukrainians would like. i think as the americans would like in terms of imposing an embargo on russian gas, for example, which is something that germany, austria, other countries in europe are resisting. and let's in fact listen to what a one ukranian has had to say. after the images emerged from butcher ukraine's president travelled there and delivered a ringing condemnation of what in his view amounts to european appeasement of. vladimir putting the as up rules who by invite merkle in sar cozy to visit, boucher and see with the policy of concessions to russia has led to in 14 years to

see with your own eyes the tortured ukrainians in ukrainian women. you going malta, noteworthy that president zelinski named names, their name to chancellor michael name to president mcgraw. how is the german political, the elite reacting oh, i think some of them understood what has happened or what kind of mistakes they made. the very, very few in the elite, i think the country that decides to phase out of nuclear energy and out of coal and, and is not able to, to be fast enough and building renewable energy like wind turbines and things like that. they need fossil fuels, they need the guess, and that's what they did for the last 15 use by, by deciding to face out of these things. you, you in the hands, the, the need for that and you and, and the dependency on guess think so that's why why put in was was financed. but

all these inputs and his in his military buildup was financed by germany. so i think this is what zalinski understands and what he's always pointing it out to say this has to change. let me ask you this. if i may add chestler medical, although to some degree she was are so tough with put in after 2014, she held europe together on sanctions against russia. on the other hand, she stuck with the north string to gas pipeline right to the end. and she remains veiled in silence. she has not addressed the reassessment of her legacy that many people are demanding. yes, i mean she was the one who decided after the earthquake and fukushima to speed up to go out from the atomic from, from nuclear energy. so what is the result if you don't have enough right now, which we still have just 40 percent of our energy coming from renewables?

and if we speed that up, we will in very, very short time have the so called nimby effect, not in my backyard, things that people will stand up and say, not my back yards. i'm and principal, i'm in favor of renewables. i want to come back to that, but i'd like to stay with the reaction right now to accusations like the ones that we heard from president lensky. they're claudia and she wanted to speak to her to the energy she had was the energy issue. because in the same time, when this happened, also that what you said that the increase dependency on russian gas there has been barriers established or to reduce the share of renewable energy. we could have today a share of renewable energy of 80 percent. if we would have not block this development and there to say you don't need gas, gas was never bridge technology. it's by purpose. and it has been a political reason why it happened in this way. so there is a clear reason why all stream to has been established. there is a clear reason why we do not have in full energy transition yet,

which we could have had if we would have been much faster. i really want to drill here for another gentleman, hands on the, on the policy of the depends of mac has a part of maybe let, let's yeah, the 2nd part of the answer is our relationship to russia. i mean, germany kills like 27000000 inhabitants of soviet union russians, bill russians, ukrainians, and doing the 2nd world war. and they, they had the feeling that because unification, but they never believed was possible because of the soviet russia, but unification with russia. they owe something, i mean we've still so remember the gorb, the gore, b r enhancement, who andrew ball came down. gorbachev, whitman and the love of gorbachev. the love of russia that they made it possible and forget that the even paid them for pulling back the troop with 18000000000 march to that job. and much of the time, have you ever seen a country that was occupied in paying the occupies for going for, for pulling back? that was the generation trip to russia. and let me ask you, matthew,

because you recently just a few days ago wrote an article called proteins, useful german idiots in which you said, and i quote, reportings invasion of ukraine. is a repudiation of a whole generation of german politicians. tell us why. well, i think we're sort of seeing that play out here in with, with miracle. obviously, gary trader, who was one of the fathers of north stream to former german chancellor, who actually even now recently traveled to moscow to redeem himself. and to mostly wanted to who went straight from the chancery a few weeks later joined a board of nor stream, as it's as it's chairman. so i, i think if you, if you sort of stand back and look at this scenery in germany, you can see that the major figures in both parties is not just one party is not to schroeder, it's not just the social democrats, it's the 2 dominant political blocks in germany are complicit in this decision. and

i would also argue that it goes beyond that even into the media establishment, especially in the, the public media in germany that also stood behind these policies. if you go and listen to the commentaries just from a couple of years ago, you heard people saying, well, we shouldn't be too hard on russia. you know, the nato is saber rattling as now. president stein meyer said back in 2018 when there was a nato exercise in, in eastern eastern europe, 16. so, you know, these are, these are all things that, that point to a kind of group think here that i think led us to this point. and i think that there, there's, there in shell shock. now all of these politicians don't know what to do, and i think this is the, the crisis really that germany faces because it can't read at this moment. i mean to read it federal president and thought to shine meyer has actually now admitted to having made grave grave mistakes. do you think the scales are finally falling

from german eyes and will it make a difference? unfortunately, i don't. and if you actually look at the text of what he said, he uses the plural a lot and says, you know, i like many others. and you know, if you, if you look at what he actually said he's, he's essentially, our strategy was right. but to team didn't play a long and you know putin is really a bad person. whereas if you go back in time, this was very controversial internationally in germany's relations with other countries. there were plenty of people outside of germany saying you can't trust booting. look at what he's done in georgia. look at what he's done in syria. look at what he's doing in libya. this is not somebody that germany should be getting into bed with. and it's worth remembering that the green light finally for north stream too, was given by germany in 2015. that was rafter crimea. that was after putting started the wars in eastern ukraine, and they still went along with it. so they went into this with sort of eyes wide

open and i don't think, you know, a few apologies here. and there can really make up for what was done here because essentially, and this is what i argue in that piece. germany opened the door for this, they effectively encouraged putin because he felt clearly that he wasn't going to suffer any repercussions from germany. by doing this is also a strategy by russia and it really made it. i mean, it's not, it wasn't on a criticism from outside, but us inside we always with this i said, and i remember also that a lot of politicians just laughed and said that, well, you're wrong because we quit the size from the energy point of view that we have huge geopolitical risk if we do it in that way and they were just ignored, i mean, laughed the way, let, let us, let us take a deeper dive. just just one small foot load. we're, we're all on germany right now, and that's right to do it. and i'm very much in favor of blaming everybody in germany for what they did with the energy policy. but it's not germany to decide how far putting is going and what kind of war he leads. there's so many more powers

involved. we have the budapest memorandum in 1994. when the great britain and usa gave gave security sovereignty assurances to the ukraine. no one is talking about that. so we have a lot of countries in also in this. in fact the you at the moment is now debating once again, right? tougher sanctions on russia in reaction to those devastating images from boucher for example. the idea of embargo in russian fossil fuels is high on the agenda, germany and a few other countries like russia friendly hungary have been resisting a full embargo at least until now. in germany and in other european countries, entire industries have been kept running on rushing gas. there are plans to replace it with liquid natural gas terminals from the usa and other places. but this will take years and an immediate suspension of russian supplies would have devastating

consequences, especially for the germany economy on the toner alberts bits of hundreds of thousands of jobs will be put at risk. entire industries would be jeopardized by the truth is that the sanctions that have now been adopted are already hitting many citizens hard and by no means just at the gas pump supply chains where the automotive industry, among others are already being disrupted. there is a shortage of fertilizer, as well as raw materials like wheat, which are usually imported from ukraine and russia. all goods are becoming more expensive because of rising transportation costs and inflation is rising as well. what price are germans willing to pay for ukraine? matthew, even president soleski has indicated that he understands that germany, that germany can't go for a full embargo on gas over night as it were. but should germany being be doing more and if so,

what i think it should definitely be doing more. and i think the question is, is the wrong one? i don't think it's what should germany be doing for you? great, because ultimately what they're doing is for security in europe. and i think when you see these pictures, there is no other option from a moral perspective, but to impose a gas embargo. and yes, that would be painful. and yes, that would tip germany into a recession. but you do, you really want to sort of live with having funded putin's aggression against ukraine. and let's remember, there are hundreds of millions every day that are flowing into russia for gas from, from germany. and i, you know, i just think it's, it's not going to be a legacy that any german is going to be comfortable with. if this war, as many people fear continues for, you know, possibly years must have the cutting off the funds for russia's war machine, as it's been called, is one of the reasons given for saying that germany and the rest of europe should

go for a tougher embargo but another reason potentially could be that if putin is in fact now planning to try to firm up his control over the east. because if gas reserves wouldn't embargo, send a message to him saying it doesn't matter because we're not going to buy him. i think we have to differentiate between coal, oil, and gas. coal and oil could in principle, be substituted just a question of money. there is an international market. there are different kinds of ways to, to bring in coal and oil from the spreads. gas is, is much more problematic because we are very much dependent, right? know, still on gas. i say if, if germany would be willing, for example, to frech out, to use the freaking system, we can produce gas bo selves, germany. but there's a european ban on fracking because so right now we're, we're importing fresh gas from the l n g. so called liquid natural gas from the

united states, which is the result of fricking. so we're not shy and taking these guys, but we are very much reluctant to do so, like germany is not shy and taking nuclear power volume is taken from. let's go to the energy expert here with 2 questions. germany is new economy and climate minister who is a member of the green party and certainly not responsible for the predicament that the country finds itself in. he's been working tirelessly to try to begin weaning germany off of fossil fuels, making deals in the united arab emirates, and can tar to get more liquefied natural gas looking to reduce coal. he says that germany can actually be off of coal and oil by the end of the year. so question would be, you have said, you think germany could do a full embargo, even including gas. how so we did several studies, especially on the gas market. we don't have to frack, that's the good news. we can import it also from other nations. and liquefied

natural gas, of course is one option. and this is because we have delayed to the energy transition. and then you cannot mix minister green party one and needs to get other sources from a gas all over the world. that's for sure. but we have enough gas on the international market. it's always a matter of price and compete here with asian countries. but we can make it and we should make it. i completely agree with matthew. we should do it now because it's, it's possible. and to avoid this negative economic impacts, we can also do a lot of by helping the economy by helping also the chemical economy. we did that during the corona time, so the government itself has it in its hand, how to reduce the negative potential economic impacts. and this is why we have to, we did all the studies related to energy or marquez and it's feasible. we have to do it not to how much hardship with the german people be willing to tolerate.

recently, the economist said, europe and germany are asking too little of their citizens. that if they would simply turn down the thermostat and drive their cars slower, we could reduce a lot of consumption of gas or the germans willing to do that or that they just want to keep in. they are complacent and comfortable. world remote. the question, who is the actor if, if putting decides to put off of it to pull by himself, stop of exporting gas oil and coal to here? i think drums will understand that they have just to suffer because what can they do if he decides upon? if schultz bonus comes to the size, the chance or decides to to stop it. and it's something else because they're all decision. he made us of freezing and winter times or made, or everything's more expensive and so on and so on. and i think this was, that was a fueling their own frustration, the tendency to forsaken, well, is, i mean,

the oldest customer a month to something of the late donald rumsfeld, his famous expression, there are no knowns and known unknowns, an unknown unknowns. we just don't know what kind of effect an embargo has on the war he's, he's fighting right now. we have the moral obligation. i understand that completely, le share that a lot. we and, but, and we still still don't know what, what the implications would be with the german economy. you have your studies the chance to have those study, but talking about mass unemployment and mass poverty massey. when you hear chancellor shalt speaking to the bonus tug, as he did recently in a debate about the budget and outlining all the dramatic consequences that an embargo would have, he referred to it as being catastrophic. is that the new leadership that many of us expected from germany after his speech on february 27th when he announced an epoch whole shift? well, quite frankly know, and i think, you know,

this is why looking back this whole talk of this site and vendor as they call it in germany this, this shift you know, i think we're gonna have to look closely at that in a couple of months. and see how far germany is really willing to go also in terms of military spending, this is already starting to be questioned by many in berlin, in the political debates. does germany really want to spend a 100000000000 on defense now? was just to sort of a knee jerk reaction. i think though, that, you know, the germans hopefully will settle on a position that they won't regrets. 5 or 10 years down the road as they are now regretting their position towards russia. because quite frankly, i think that yes, there are a lot of unknown unknowns. i don't think that a gas embargo is going to, you know, break putin's will. it won't. but, you know, he'll find ways to sell that gas to the chinese, to the indians and others, but at least it will not be europeans financing this war. and i think it's worth

remembering that germans, western europeans, live very comfortable lives. people are not willing to suffer quite honestly, but i think you know, it's worth looking at what's going on in maria, pull what look at the people coming out of those sellers and the stories they're telling. and i think, you know, it's, it's time for a reality check and monta. let's come back to our title because it asks whether russian war crimes, whether those pictures from maria pull, where we see emaciated, hands and arms reaching out for bread that was being distributed after people came out of their sellers. will they change german minds? our title asks us russian war crimes end of german allegiance. i'm a little bit more optimistic and matthew is, i think it changes a lot. we see this picture is nothing that if it comes germany confronting their own paths, they dealt with the general site with genocidal intent with things like this. they always said they had the up to saying that this gives us an obligation to stop it.

i think if you take just take them by words, you can change the attitude towards things that i have been able to grow. claudia, in many ways, it now looks as if the period since 1989 is ending. and that we're seeing germany and perhaps many others in europe as well, coming out of a kind of a bubble where people thought that we were surrounded by friends and good commercial relations would ensure peace and security. do you think we're going to see a new re out politic a new realism now in germany, perhaps, especially when it comes to energy while i would hope so, i would say why come to reality? because a lot of expos sells us, but many others have always warned against, especially this russian policy related to the energy sector. so there are so many geopolitical risk related to this. so i would hope that will be a new politic related to the energy transition. and move forward to increase the

shelf renewables and energy savings. thank you very much. thanks to all of you for being with us. and thanks to our viewers for tuning in, see you soon. ah ah,

with who the war has forced more than 4000000 ukrainians, typically their country, like alexei, a 36 year old business owner who left his company and employees behind people who continue to rely on him for a salary. will his enterprise be able to survive the war

a d. w. business special like 90 minutes on w. o. a in the world right now. climate change if any, off the story. this is my plan, the way from just one week. how much was going to really get we still have time to go. i'm going all with his subscriber along with this issue. when i arrived here, i slept with people in a room. 9th, in it was harlow spear. i even got white harris at long learning. the german language helped me a lot. this kits. me

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ah ah, this is news live from berlin. more evidence comes to light of the devastation left behind by russian troops after their withdrawal from northern ukraine. the small town of the keys saw intense fighting between russian and ukrainian forces. dw correspondent nick connelly spoke to residents about their ordeal under russian occupation. also coming up a bond hospital in mary opal and ukraine on world health day and appeal from the

united nations to stop a tax on health facilities.