The Ukraine war, which the Kremlin ruler Vladimir Putin wanted to win en passant as a “special operation”, has hit Moscow with a vengeance. Details are still unclear, but the car bomb that killed journalist and political scientist Darya Dugina, 29, has alarmed Russian society. Alexander Dugin, 60, father of the dead, is something of Putin’s favorite ideologue with his writings against the West and for a Greater Slavic Empire.
Father and daughter still had a patriotic festival on Saturday night. The agitator had defended the military strikes in Ukraine on state television: “What is happening there now is an attempt by the Russians to protect civilians from death.”
The accusations quickly raised in Moscow that Ukraine was behind the terrorist attack against Dugina are denied by Kyiv: “We are not a criminal state, this is the Russian Federation. And even less are we a terrorist state.”
Conspiracy theorists also consider the Russian secret service FSB (which Dugin takes a critical view of) or an underground cell to be possible perpetrators.
The Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 did nothing but stop Germany’s DAX companies from investing heavily in Vladimir Putin’s empire. In 2015, the domestic business elite was even the largest investor with 36 new individual projects. Word has gotten around at the top of the DAX companies that the attack on Ukraine means a change in business – corrections and belated regrets are correspondingly painful.
According to the calculations of our balance sheet mole Ulf Sommer, top German companies have written off more than ten billion euros from their balance sheets in connection with Russian transactions since the beginning of the Ukraine war. Siemens, gas supplier Uniper and BASF are particularly noticeable with their “Putin penalty” in the calculator, Mercedes-Benz and Linde are likely to follow soon with similar negative news.
On their global search for replacement candidates for the reduced energy supplies from the war nation Russia, which will soon be completely absent, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his deputy Robert Habeck are arriving in Canada today for a three-day visit.
The German guests are craving liquid gas (LNG) and green hydrogen, which is to be produced in the future in the small town of Stephenville in Newfoundland in the east of the country – but all of this is only good hope values.
So far, Canada is only 31st in the ranking of the most important German trading partners. After all, the Canadian-European free trade agreement Ceta (in force since 2017) is soon to be ratified by Germany, with additional declarations on investment protection. And a lot of nickel, cobalt and copper could be supplied from the North American country. Mining association boss Pierre Gratton: “We can supply the Europeans with raw materials that are greener and produced with higher environmental standards than anywhere else in the world.” Conclusion: The message should be understood in China.
The Israeli company NSO was feared by journalists and activists because its spy software “Pegasus” was a weapon in the service of authoritarian states such as Saudi Arabia.
It can be used to monitor contacts, messages and the location of a target person on their smartphone, which is why the Federal Criminal Police Office and the Federal Intelligence Service swear by “Pegasus”. But the economic success of NSO left a lot to be desired despite a possible “Big Brother dividend” – and that’s why founder and CEO Shalev Hulio Knall is stepping down.
Allegedly 100 employees, almost a sixth of the NSO staff, have to be fired. The previous director of operations, Yaron Shohat, will now lead the reinvention of the heavily indebted company. In the future, NSO will rely primarily on NATO member states and will be reprimanded and sued by Apple and Meta (Facebook) for breaking into their products.
Ambitious home builders, who then didn’t become one, longingly remember the recently lost interest paradise. Now you have the most beautiful architectural plans and even sculptures for the garden, but also a house bench that has become gruff. The financial institutions have “become more risk-aware of real estate loans,” says Raimund Rössler, chief bank supervisor of the Bafin financial regulator.
A survey by our editorial team of seven top real estate financiers shows that most of them apply stricter standards and are much more likely to turn down financing requests. For example, Deutsche Bank recommends its customers “the use of sufficient equity and/or – as far as possible – a higher repayment”. For some, the “as far as possible” translates to a simple “impossible for the time being”.
Something is always unique in this strange summer of premieres on ARD. The firing of seasoned journalist Patricia Schlesinger, first as head of ARD, then of the tangled RBB, the resignations of the heads of control at the Berlin broadcaster, and finally at the weekend the distrust that the public broadcaster association expressed in the remaining top management.
The affairs of corruption, cronyism and organized irresponsibility spur on all those who have always seen public service as “compulsory fees”, “government mainstream” or “gender madness”.
Only courageous renovation can help here. It will probably not work with the firewall that Katja Wildermuth, director of Bavarian Radio, pulls in an interview with the “Süddeutsche”: “As far as I know and from what we now know: Yes, the events in the RBB are singular.”
For many weeks, the other ARD broadcasters asked for comprehensive information from the RBB, but only found out a lot in bits and pieces or from the press: “The trust was lost.” You can probably say that: How should the trust first have those who pay 18.36 euros for the radio every month?
And then there is the sports city of Munich, which, with the European Championships, managed the feat of somehow positively recycling the Olympic Games 50 years ago.
The competitions in the old arenas gave the lie to all those who indulge in gigantism with chunky new buildings for such events. The European Athletics Championships in the Olympic Stadium in front of 40,000 spectators caused a sensation again at the final on Sunday.
People were happy about surprising gold successes by javelin thrower Julian Weber and the women’s 4×100 meter relay and millions of viewers on ZDF were happy too. Prime Minister Markus Söder, who comes from Nuremberg, also wants a piece of Munich’s golden city marketing success – for which the federal and state governments also paid: “Bavaria is a good place for major sporting events.”
There is an old adage: “There is usually something going on in the background, in the foreground there is usually something.”
I wish you a happy start into the week.
It greets you cordially
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor