Mildred Klaus
In his video message, Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about how watching a Russian weightlifter brought him to become a bodybuilder, how he made friends when he was allowed to shoot a film in Moscow's Red Square - the first time ever that a foreign film was allowed to be shot in the Soviet Union’s holy-of-holies.
He also speaks directly to Vladimir Putin, who is a fan of Schwarzenegger: "You started this war, you are fighting this war and you have it in your hands to end it."
Russians don't deserve to be enemies
Let's examine Schwarzenegger's message for what it means for the times ahead. Schwarzenegger deliberately avoids making an enemy of the Russian people. On the contrary, he stresses the love of peace and the capacity for suffering that are recognisable in Russian history as well as the heroism that is now being abused by the Kremlin.
But: "The Russian" is no longer the bogeyman that he was in Germany two generations ago. That is an astonishing realisation to come out of the war in Ukraine. People understand that an unscrupulous upper class operates in the Kremlin, a superstate that also exists in the West - albeit not with imperial ambitions like in Moscow.
The humanism of the energy transition
And: Schwarzenegger appealed to the people in Russia, who love his films just as much as they do here in Europe or in America. You don't have to like the films, but Schwarzenegger's video sends a deeply humanistic message. The same is true for his video a year ago following the January 6 riots when an angry mob stormed Capitol Hill in Washington. And it is this humanism that brings us back to the energy transition.
The war over Russian natural gas, for that is what is at the heart of the war in Ukraine, clearly shows that there can be no peace as long as fossil or nuclear fuels are around. Billions of euros and US dollars are involved in shipping oil, natural gas or uranium fuel rods halfway around the globe. So there are strong forces that want to keep this business going. It is too tempting, too lucrative, to leave it to less geared-up rivals (such as Ukraine).
Russia loses its energy customers
Yet Ukraine is only a transit country, earning money from customs duties and the transit of natural gas. But it is also an energy customer of Russia and Belarus, dependent on the electricity grid of its north-eastern neighbours and on the supply of nuclear fuel rods for its nuclear power stations.
Was connected to these grids, it must be said: Last week President Selenskyi had the connections to the north and east cut. Now Ukraine is hooked up to the European grid, is supplied via Moldova and will certainly soon be supplied via further connection points in Poland.
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The key to Russia
Ukraine is the key to Russia. This has been proven again and again in the long course of its history from the Kievan Rus to the present day. When this war ends, it will be time for the reconstruction of Ukraine. It is not NATO arms deliveries that will bring peace, but the energy transition in Ukraine as well and the establishment of sustainable, regional value chains.
For the German and European solar industry, Ukraine is becoming a new market of outstanding importance. Talking about solar markets while bombs are falling, and we are being shown TV images of dead women and children. But as an industry we need to look further, beyond the delivery of weapons and humanitarian aid. This support to Ukraine is important to deny Putin a military victory. But they will not bring peace - at least not a real and lasting peace.
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Reaching out to the East
Now the time of the military-nuclear complex is running out. Therefore, when the war in Ukraine will one day be over, the West must reach out to the East. Not to Putin and his henchmen, who have been courted, kept and nurtured long enough. But to the people on the ground. Russia has 140 million inhabitants, around eleven million have direct relatives in Ukraine.
Germany and Europe must and can bring its economic strength to bear in order to rebuild Ukraine. There must be an economic miracle along the lines of what happened in West Germany after 1945. The energy transition, as the most modern segment of the global economy, has a central role here.
Everything is at stake
For only it will secure the future, promote regional value creation, make Ukraine - like Germany - independent of fuels from Russia and the Donbass, make it independent of the oligarchs and speculators of this world. Millions of refugees will be enabled to return to their homeland. Because they have a future, work and peace there.
Coal, oil, gas and uranium will never bring peace, as the war in Ukraine reveals once again. It is our duty to think beyond the eastern horizon. Seen in this light, the war in Ukraine is indeed a turning point. Everything that defines the West is equally at stake there. (mfo)
