The Russians think they just have to kill enough Ukrainians, win the war, and then their trading relations will get back to normal.
Today, my generation has a very positive view of Germans, but I remember growing up in the 1980's in Denmark, where some of my dad's business relations still would not do deals with anyone from Germany.
That was forty years after World War II and Hitler's occupation of Denmark.
Forty years — this is the kind of anger the Russians have drawn upon themselves.
#ukraine
@randahl Can confirm, however, it doesn't really seem to have dented overall German economic performance at the time. It was mostly an emotionally driven individual stance, not official policy. A good illustration would have been the Dutch where the governments were pro-German, but the young generation was overwhelmingly and passionately anti their German peers. One key difference to Russia: Germany was firmly embedded in Western European institutions.
@andiias @randahl Exactly. Germany didn't spend 40 years behind a self-imposed iron curtain prior to WWII.