Are Germany and Britain ready for war with Russia?
Anton Trofimov, Sovetskaya Rossiya, November 17, 2025 —
Germany and Great Britain have achieved impressive success in their long-planned attempt to overthrow the Russian government. True, there is one small detail that the instigators of this political war failed to anticipate. Power is faltering, but not where Berlin and London expected. And no, we’re not talking about Kyiv at all! The German and British governments are hurtling headlong into a major crisis, which could soon cost Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer their jobs.
The funniest thing is that both had long been warned: attempts at blind support for Ukraine at the expense of national interests and the push for the militarization of the budget and economy would lead to nothing good. Equally funny is that both Merz and Starmer achieved success in their campaigns for the top posts by promising to reconsider their Kyiv policy. And then they did exactly what they wanted to reverse. Who could have imagined that voters would be so ungrateful and, instead of unconditionally approving of emptying their pockets for a Kyiv comedian and military spending, would start demanding a return to the previous social policy!
“The economic turnaround promised by Merz during the election campaign is, in any case, not showing any signs of happening. The mood is low, and so is the economic situation,” Germany’s Der Spiegel proclaims in a funereal tone. “Since 2019, the economy has grown by only 0.3%, while in the US it has grown by around 12%. In China, it has grown by almost 27%. In the past 12 months, almost 160,000 jobs have disappeared from German industry. Private investment declined last year, even falling below the pre-crisis level of 2019. According to a survey by the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce, only 15% of companies expect the economic situation to improve in the next 12 months, while a quarter expect it to worsen. The German economy is in deep crisis. Despite Merz. And even with Merz.”
Oh, please, please, don’t use such cheap pathos and such blatant lies! Not “despite Merz,” ladies and gentlemen, but solely because of him. And because of the forces behind the current German Chancellor. Because it is precisely their unbridled desire to change Russia’s course at any cost and return to the “blessed” era of Moscow’s hands-on control that is the real cause of the crisis. Everything else is just ongoing mistakes that are turning Germany’s steep nosedive into an uncontrollable fall.
Today, as the kaleidoscopic figures of German chancellors increasingly irritate Germans, they are beginning to yearn for the prudent politicians of the past. It’s no coincidence that the German newspaper Die Zeit nostalgically cites one of the most important statements by Gerhard Schröder, who headed the German government from 1998 to 2005: “If I were a Soviet marshal or colonel, I would consider the expansion of NATO’s borders… a provocation and a threat to Holy Rus’. And I would oppose it. And if I can’t oppose it today, I intend to destroy it tomorrow.”
But is it any wonder that German politicians, rushing to trade national interests for an attempt to create a European counterweight to the US in the form of the EU, have forgotten the warnings of their predecessors? Alas, no. The current generation of European bureaucrats and politicians has completely confused their own interests with those of the state. As a result, to achieve their personal goals, they delve ever deeper into budgets, following the “advice” and “urgent recommendations” of people convinced that quick and reliable profits can only be made through war.
“Military experts and intelligence agencies can roughly estimate when Russia will rebuild its armed forces to the point where it will be capable of striking a NATO member state in the east. We’ve always said this could happen as early as 2029. However, there are now those who believe it’s possible as early as 2028, and some military historians even believe we’ve had our last summer of peace. We mustn’t give the impression that NATO can’t defend itself. It can. The alliance has significant deterrence potential. Conventional, but also nuclear, of course,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius blurted out in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He used these ridiculous words in response to a question about the likelihood of a direct military clash between NATO and Russia.
It’s difficult to understand what goes on in the mind of Herr Pistorius, who so passionately loves the military uniform that he’s ready to show it off anywhere and everywhere. What this means for those who, due to their duty, not just a ministerial salary, and who are forced to be in daily readiness for war throughout their entire lives, not just a few years, is of no concern to Herr Minister. After all, it’s far more interesting to know that every militaristic statement increases the profits of the German military-industrial complex, which has been genuinely irritated by the prolonged peace.
Herr Minister, incidentally, also speaks quite frankly about this in his interview: “The next step will be to further accelerate procurement. The [Bundeswehr] Procurement Directorate in Koblenz has done impressive work in recent years. However, given the increase in procurement volumes, we need to analyze how we can further improve structures and processes. At the same time, we must also discuss the issue of additional representation, in particular to attract even more specialists to the directorate.”
The German government is willing to obediently carry out the orders of military industrialists, cutting social budget lines. At the same time, it doesn’t seem overly upset by the economic recession—and it’s understandable why. The higher the unemployment rate, the easier it is to recruit those willing to profit from the deaths of others. It’s no coincidence that Mr. Pistorius, in the same interview, openly hinted that the authorities are prepared to abandon the already announced return of universal conscription: “A revival of military service as it was before is currently out of the question. We are consciously relying on volunteers. We need motivated and suitable ones.”
The implication is perfectly clear: if the Germans want to eat, let them accept army rations. When the Bundeswehr grows to unprecedented proportions, unemployment will naturally decline. Some former workers will don military uniforms, while others will take up positions at military-industrial complex machines, which will receive colossal urgent orders. Profit! And there won’t be any problem motivating them to serve. And if, as always, it turns out in the end that the Russians weren’t threatening anyone, and Europe is to blame—well, the people of the Old World are no stranger to such disappointments…
The only problem is that today, feeding Europeans militaristic lies is far less easy than it was a hundred years ago. Neither the Germans, nor the British, nor the French are at all eager to believe that the Russians, who only yesterday they were told to consider friends, have suddenly decided to become enemies. However, EU citizens are quite willing to believe that Russia is being painstakingly portrayed as an aggressor in order to squeeze more money out of their wallets. And so they are increasingly skeptical of politicians who continue to frighten them with the Russian bear in order to redirect voter discontent in their favor.
This is precisely why Germans are currently refusing to support Chancellor Merz, and the British are rejecting Prime Minister Starmer. He currently holds a unique record: never before has a British prime minister had such a low trust rating – just 17%! In this regard, Sir Keir has even surpassed Herr Friedrich, who is still trusted by almost a third of German citizens. Is it any wonder that Labour, represented by Mr. Starmer, is willing to do anything to replace the frankly disastrous prime minister with a more compromising figure?
“This is happening against a backdrop of ongoing economic uncertainty, which affects more people today than in 2022, when the cost-of-living crisis was just beginning to gather momentum,” the British newspaper The Telegraph notes. “Indeed, historically, we have only seen similar levels of scepticism about the government’s long-term economic plans in the final years of Major and Sunak’s administrations, and under Brown after the financial crash… However, the current circumstances are different – record low job satisfaction ratings for the Prime Minister and Chancellor, years of deep public pessimism about the state of the country, the economy, and public services, and a more fragmented political landscape with new rivals on all sides.”
Well, gentlemen and gentlemen, you’ve finally had the chance to see how far you can go down the path of whipping up war hysteria—and how difficult it will be to turn back. This was evident initially by how quickly the European economy spiraled downward after abandoning Russian energy supplies—but you weren’t convinced. It was understandable when you wanted to rein in Chinese chip makers—but that lesson didn’t serve you well either. Finally, it’s easy to assess the real chances of defeating the Russians on the battlefield based on the unfortunate experience of intervening in the conflict in Ukraine—but even there, common sense failed the European bureaucrats.
Now Europe has one last chance to pull itself out of the current political swamp by its own hair…
If the Germans and British succeed in this task, the world will endure. If not, they’ll have to deal with the same problem in a few years, but in a far more unpleasant way. They understand that our country “doesn’t start wars—it ends them.” Just like now in Ukraine. It’s unlikely that Europeans will be more foolish than most Ukrainians, who are already advocating for the immediate start of peace talks. But what is quite likely is that, after the resignation of the rotten EU governments, it will finally become clear who paid whom, and how much, to drive Europe into conflict with Russia. The consequences of this can also be seen in the example of Ukraine. And it’s unlikely that the inhabitants of the Old World are so eager to repeat its experience…