She said Berlin had been conspicuously silent about the Kremlin's recent clampdown on the freedom of the mass media. The ongoing war in the breakaway republic of Chechnya, she added, remained an added irritation.
Chechnyans protest against Putin in Berlin
Chechnyans protest against Putin in Berlin
"People are still disappearing at an alarming rate, perhaps the highest rate in the world," she said. "We feel that the Russian government should be investigating and prosecuting the troops that are responsible for such atrocities and we would hope that the German government would press to take these steps."
Bogert's demands vis-à-vis Berlin are anything but new. But there's a feeling that a new coalition government under Chancellor-designate Angela Merkel might lead to a real readjustment of this country's foreign policy guidelines towards the Kremlin.
"I think that the recent intensity and nature of German-Russian relations has been heavily dependent on the friendly relations between outgoing German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Russian President Vladimir Putin," said Marianne Heuwagen, who heads the new Human Rights Watch office in Berlin. "Angela Merkel will of course not completely change bilateral relations between Berlin and Moscow. But if her eastern background is anything to go by, she'll be more likely not to bring up the Chechnya issue."
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