Angela Merkel, Russias Next Target - New York Times

[ffr]

HAMBURG, Germany — It’s no surprise that Russia met President Obama’s expulsion of its diplomats, which he announced Thursday in response to the Kremlin’s efforts to manipulate the 2016 election, with a collective shrug. Moscow seems content to let the clock run out, knowing that on Jan. 20 Mr. Obama will be replaced by an admirer in the White House and an old friend in the State Department.

But the changeover is bittersweet; President Vladimir V. Putin has also lost a beloved boogeyman. For the foreseeable future, the United States can hardly serve as Russia’s preferred enemy of the state. So guess who qualifies best as a new, well, boogeywoman? Angela Merkel.

The German chancellor is a perfect target. Germany is holding general elections next autumn, and with politicians sympathetic to Moscow on the rise, she may well be running for her fourth term as the sole European leader willing to stand up to a newly assertive Russia.

Since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Ms. Merkel has been the most consequential voice for punishing Russia. The next year, she welcomed a million refugees into Germany, and pushed the rest of Europe to do the same — thus, in the view of Russian ethno-nationalists, diluting European culture. And she still believes in a united, integrated European Union, a bastion of liberal values and, at least implicitly, a political and economic bulwark against Russia.

It seems that Russia may be planning to do to Ms. Merkel and her allies in 2017 what it did to Hillary Clinton and other Democrats in the United States in 2016. - New York Times

Hybrid Cyber Warfare. Like terrorist attacks that have no one state sponsor, they're difficult to defend and retaliate against.

Putin is showing the World that people of great nations are so dumb, they've made his political takeover of his former adversaries basically a cake walk.

Hey, thanks there Joe and Jane rust belt voter! How do you like tRump's buddy now? Better hang onto your wallets, because there ain't no jobs coming and no plans to help veterans either, but you can sure bet tRump and Putin are coming to take away America's assets -- you dumb fucks!!!

[No Vested Interest]

1. I had understood that Merkel and Putin got along well.

She was raised in the former East Germany, where Putin had spent much time while in the KGB.
He speaks fluent German, and I believe she speaks Russian.

But I realize the times they are a'changing.
I think Merkel's biggest challenge is her growing unpopularity among German citizens, who are increasingly objecting to the large influx of refugees from the Mideast and the influence the refugees are having on Germany's traditional way of life.

And it's more than possible that Russia will now try to grease the route to her removal in the coming German elections, if Russia considers that to be in Russia's interest.

[stevenleser]

3. They have a cordial relationship, but she despises him

This article explains why and no I don't believe him when he says he didn't know she was afraid of dogs. The Russian intelligence services would have told him that.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/01/12/europe/putin-merkel-scared-dog/index.html?client=safari

[No Vested Interest]

4. Understandable that she despises him. Putin is a snake. nt

[Cha]

2. K&R.. You're on a roll, ffr.. thank you for all these important

articles!