Decades of dependency has left Berlin in a fragile economic and political state

Katja Hoyer

06 January 2026

It’s not so long ago that it would have caused outrage if a Russian politician had fantasised about abducting the German chancellor and called him a “neo-Nazi” for good measure. When former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev did just that on Sunday, it triggered no more than a formally worded condemnationfrom the German government’s spokesman and some shoulder shrugging from the German foreign minister Johann Wadephul, who called Medvedev’s comments “interesting”.

It’s incidents like this that highlight how much the relationship between Germany and Russia has changed. But it’s likely to take much longer for Germany itself to catch up with that change.

Of course, Medvedev’s comments have to be seen in context. When he suggested that “the kidnapping of the neo-Nazi Merz could be an excellent twist in this carnival of events,” he was responding to the US capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, who had been an ally of Russia. However, he chose not only to single out chancellor Friedrich Merz for his jibe, but also added, “There are even grounds for prosecuting him in Germany, so it would be no loss, especially since the citizens are suffering needlessly” – an allusion to the high energy prices afflicting Germany since it weaned itself off Russian fossil fuels following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Medvedev’s comments reveal two things. The first is how sore Russia is about losing Germany as an energy consumer and business partner, despite protestations to the contrary. German imports from Russia have fallen by 95 per cent since the start of the war. Berlin is now largely dependent on countries such as Norway and the US instead for its all-important energy imports. This means an acute loss of revenue and influence for Moscow in Europe.

But Medvedev’s remarks also point to the other side of that coin. Energy in Germany has become expensive, unreliable and vulnerable to sabotage. The legacy of the years of Russian dependence will take a long time to rectify and may require more political will than Berlin can muster at the moment. Germany is now exposed to attacks on critical infrastructure, an unattractive place for energy-intensive industries to invest and a politically volatile landscape in which the future relationship with Russia continues to play a key role.

This is about much more than money. Germany had sold off critical energy infrastructure on its own soil to Russia, including its biggest gas storage facility, a subterranean mega-structure as big as over 900 football fields that stores enough gas to supply two million households for a year. “We underestimated the dependency and security-political risks that derived from this relationship,” Norbert Röttgen from Merz’s conservative CDU party admitted with hindsight.

In late 2022, Germany took control of Russian-owned refineries, storage facilities and other infrastructure in the country, but it can never regain control over the deep knowledge and insight Moscow has gained into the German set-up. Now, Vladimir Putin can use that. It was reported earlier this week that Russia has been intensifying covert attacks on German infrastructure, including on energy facilities. While the defence ministry has now designated Russia as “the greatest and most immediate threat to Germany’s security,” there is no quick fix for the gaping holes caused by years of reckless intertwining with Russia.

Another hangover from Germany’s love affair with Russia is the sheer cost and instability of the hastily re-arranged energy supply. The third-largest economy in the world imports a staggering 70 per cent of the energy it uses, and everyone knows how much what is left of its struggling industry depends on this. Berlin is in no position to bargain for better prices or conditions.

German consumers pay some of the highest electricity prices in the world, and potential investors are so put off by the situation that many walk away. Last year, ArcelorMittal, the world’s second-largest steelmaker, even turned down €1.3bn in subsidies to produce green steel in Germany, preferring to invest “in countries that can offer competitive and predictable electricity provision,” as the company put it.

The combination of steady economic decline and high consumer costs, in turn, fuels political tensions in Germany. Merz’s government may have adopted a stance so bullish that it clearly riles Moscow, but opposition parties are using people’s despair and the pernicious effects of economic pessimism to present a return to friendlier relations with Russia as an easy fix for the country’s ailments.

Especially the far-Right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), now the largest opposition party and leading in many polls, makes hay with the fears and pressures created by the situation. In its election manifesto last year, it declared: “In the wake of the sanctions against Russia, the affordable energy supply in Germany is additionally heavily threatened. Because of this, our country is no longer able to compete.”

This would lead to “deindustrialisation and impoverish the German people”. The solution is simple, the AfD suggests: “Russia has been a reliable provider and guarantor of affordable energy for decades.” The party demands that “unrestricted trade with Russia” should be resumed, sanctions lifted, and the Nord Stream pipelines restored. That Medvedev’s point that German “citizens are suffering needlessly” chimes with AfD arguments is no coincidence.

Restoring trade with Russia is a demand that finds many open ears well beyond the AfD and their voters. Desperate for secure and cheap energy, many German business captains are only too eager for the war in Ukraine to end and resume imports from Russia. They, in turn, have the ear of many politicians, including those in the two ruling parties. 

Thomas Bareiss, for instance, from Merz’s own conservative CDU, was one of the negotiators of the coalition treaty, where he was in the group dedicated to energy questions. He made headlines last year by suggesting that if there was peace in Ukraine, “of course, gas can flow again”. Dietmar Woidke from the centre-Left coalition partner, the SPD, agreed, arguing for a “normalisation of trade relations.” That’s before you even get to far-Left and far-Right opposition parties.

Germany’s Russia reset is far from complete. Berlin’s decades-long dependency has left deep traces on the country’s economic, political and logistical makeup. If Medvedev’s outrageous comments barely raise eyebrows these days, that’s as much to do with the government coming to terms with the true face of Russian diplomacy as it is with the unnerving fragility left behind by Germany’s Russia withdrawal. This is a messy divorce that’s far from over.

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Katja Hoyer’s latest book ‘Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe’ is out May 2026