Is Germany finally standing up to Russia and China?

When German chancellor Olaf Scholz met Russian president Vladimir Putin yesterday, the visuals said it all. As he had done with Emmanuel Macron, Putin kept his visitor at arm’s length, or rather at five metres’ length. Sitting at opposite ends of the Kremlin’s infamous long table, the two men were as physically far away from each other as they were on content. But Scholz did not seem intimidated by this. On the contrary. At the press conference that followed, he was assertive, even feisty. Are we seeing the beginnings of a post-Merkel foreign policy shift in Berlin?

When ex-chancellor Angela Merkel last sat at the same table in Moscow in the early 2000s, it was across the narrow side – still a good eight feet away from Putin, but better placed to look him in the eye. She was subjected to power games, too. In 2007 Putin brought his pet Labrador Konni into a meeting with her, knowing full well that Merkel was afraid of dogs.