World leaders are weighing in with praise as well as harsh criticism for Putin’s re-election victory in Russia. Officials say the president garnered almost 77 percent of the vote, with an estimated turnout of 67 percent.
Vladimir Putin’s re-election has elicited decidedly mixed feelings throughout Germany, including at the highest levels of political power. In the government’s Monday press conference, spokesman Steffen Seibert said that German Chancellor Angela Merkel would send the longtime Russian leader a congratulatory telegram that would “address the challenges we face in German-Russian relations.”
In his official well wishes, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier wrote that Germany and Russia were “disturbingly far removed” from a “lasting cooperative peaceful order” in Europe. He added, pointedly, “Mistrust, rearmament and a climate of insecurity contribute to the instability” – hardly a usual wording in a message of congratulation.
Earlier, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the election in Russia was not a “fair political competition,” according to European standards and that Russia would “remain a diffcult partner.” He added it was “unacceptable” that the elections also took place in annexed Crimea.
However, he said that “Russia is needed when it comes to solving the big international conflicts.” He called on Moscow to be more “constructive” than it has been in the past.
Manfred Weber, the parliamentary group leader of the conservative alliance in the EU, the European People’s Party (EPP), put it more bluntly by suggesting in German daily Bild that Russia was waging “a modern war against the West.” He added that a “line has been crossed, we Europeans need to wake up, end this naivety. Our way of life is being attacked and we need to defend ourselves.”
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