Sven Krüger has much to be proud of in the Saxon city of which he is mayor, Freiberg. For example, this small university city, with about 40,000 inhabitants, claims as its own the landscape of the so-called “Ore Mountains”, a mountainous region recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and which forms the natural border between Germany and the Czech Republic. .
However, it is not this panorama of Saxony but some recent international achievements of the mayor of Freiberg that has put this Teutonic city in the limelight. Krüger, an independent politician of almost fifty years who until 2018 was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), participated last weekend in one of the most prominent parties of the Russian elite. Namely, the Petrowski Ball in St. Petersburg. The German weekly Die Zeit reported it in its digital edition earlier this week.
The party that Krüger attended, apparently on his own initiative and paying for the expenses out of his pocket, is an appointment held with the fullest recognition of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Putin himself starred in a video message at the party congratulating the organizers for a “project that transports us to the glorious chapters of Russian history,” the Russian head of state was quoted as saying in Die Zeit. “The organizers had announced that they wanted to revive the Russian cultural code of the old tsarist times,” the German weekly abounds.
Krüger was a special guest at the ball. He even gave a speech in which he spoke of his “optimism” regarding German-Russian relations. “In the future,” as Krüger said in his speech, Germany and Russia “will again find a way to relate to each other and overcome difficult times.”
Rare is the German media that does not collect these statements by Krüger these days, but what has not come to light are the reasons for the mayor’s optimism. Since Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine began in February last year, Germany and Russia have not stopped putting ground on each other.
This 2023, Germany has become independent of Russian energy sources and that, on natural gas from Russia, the country of Chancellor Olaf Scholz had become dependent. In 2021, 55% of the natural gas imported by Germany came from Russia.
The German-Russian relationship has turned upside down in its foreign policy as a result of the invasion against Ukraine. It is in one of its worst moments for decades. In addition, with Scholz in the Federal Chancellery, Germany has started to export huge quantities of weapons to a conflict zone, the Ukraine, something that in Berlin was taboo not so long ago. Moreover, Germany has become the European country that has committed the most military aid to Ukraine, according to the accounts of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW).
These circumstances did not prevent the mayor of Freiberg from thinking twice about his last trip to Russia. Krüger apparently acted guided by his optimism, his desire to participate in a good party with tsarist airs and, above all, after being invited by his friend and organizer of the appointment, Hans-Joachim Frey. This influential businessman from the Teutonic cultural sector is part of the group of German personalities related to Moscow. According to the newspaper Die Welt, at the beginning of this year, Frey received the Order of Saint George from Putin. He then stated: “I am on the side of Russia.”
