Annalena Baerbock: How the Tiergarten murder sentence becomes the first ordeal by fire

analysis

Tiergarten Murder Trial
How a murder sentence for Baerbock becomes the first acid test in foreign policy

Annalena Baerbock has only been in her new job as Foreign Minister for a week and is already facing the first major test. The reason for this is the verdict in the so-called “Tiergartenmord” trial, which made waves in the capital on Wednesday. According to the conviction of the court, the defendant Russian shot a Georgian of Chechen descent in August 2019 in the middle of the Kleiner Tiergarten park in Berlin – on behalf of Russian government agencies. The accusation is nothing less than “state terrorism” on the Russian side – in a phase in which German-Russian relations are already more than strained due to the Ukraine crisis.

But the new foreign minister wasted no time. “This murder on a state order – as confirmed by the court today – represents a serious violation of German law and the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Germany,” said Baerbock in one Statement and immediately declared two employees of the Russian embassy to be “undesirable persons”. A step that amounts to expelling the diplomats. The Russian ambassador Sergei Nechayev thereupon spoke of an “obviously unfriendly act that does not go unrequited” and described the accusation of Russian involvement as “absurd”.

Russia expert: The verdict is politically extremely explosive

“That was state terrorism”, however, judged the presiding judge Olaf Arnoldi on Wednesday. The act was “nothing more than revenge and retribution”. For Russia expert Manfred Sapper, the verdict is politically extremely explosive. The evidence, of which the public has hardly known anything so far, must be overwhelming, otherwise the judge would not have chosen such a strong word, the editor-in-chief of the trade journal “Eastern Europe” is certain. Political scientist Stefan Meister also sees the judgment as “another building block in German-Russian relations that have been deteriorating for years.” It shows that the Russian leaders do not care about relations with Germany and that they are ready to escalate the relationship further, says the expert from the German Society for Foreign Policy (DGAP) star.

Foreign Minister Baerbock had to show a clear edge here and put Russia in its place. Even if the shot Georgian who led a militia against Russia during the second Chechnya war should have people on his conscience himself – that does not justify the vigilante justice of Russian secret services on German soil.

When pronouncing the verdict, Judge Arnoldi also pointed out that the victim had long been in Russia’s sights. Russian President Vladimir Putin later publicly referred to the Georgian as a “bandit”, “murderer” and “bloodthirsty person”. The court assessed the failure to provide assistance in clearing up the case as a further aspect among a “large number of powerful indications” that the order for the killing came from Russia.

The verdict is only a neutral, legal certification of what we have known politically for a long time, says expert Sapper. “We are faced with a radicalization of Putinism.”

German-Russian relations in crisis

Since Russia’s capture of the Ukrainian Crimea in 2014, German-Russian relations have continued to deteriorate. This was ensured by the largest cyber attack to date by Russian hackers on the Bundestag in 2015, the poisoning of the Kremlin critic Alexej Navalny and the current deployment of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine. For Russia expert Sapper it is clear: “It is not the judgment, but the act itself that will continue to burden German-Russian relations.”

The responsibility therefore lies not only with Foreign Minister Baerbock, but with the entire federal government. “At the moment, two lights are flashing at the same time, that doesn’t work at any of the traffic lights,” explains Sapper. There are two mutually exclusive currents: the forces oriented towards values ​​and law, which would include the Greens and the “Lambsdorff-FDP”, and those oriented towards economic interests and nostalgia – including Scholz and parts of the SPD. The big question is therefore how the new Federal Chancellor in particular will react.

This in turn strengthened Baerbock’s back. The verdict is “clear information that bad things have happened here, and therefore it is absolutely right that the Foreign Minister responded with a clear answer,” said Olaf Scholz on Thursday before his first EU summit in Brussels. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov “firmly” rejected the allegation of Russia’s involvement, but hopes that the case will not have a negative impact on political relations. The de facto diplomatic expulsions could just be the beginning.

Expulsions “important but not enough”

During the preliminary investigation into the “Tiergarten Murder” process, the German government expelled two Russian embassy employees in 2019 for a lack of willingness to cooperate. Moscow turned the tables and in turn sent two diplomats back to Germany. This time it could go even further, the Russian Foreign Ministry has already announced “retaliatory measures”.

Political scientist Meister sees Foreign Minister Baerbock’s deportation as an “important step, but too little”. “That will not deter the Russian leadership from having people killed in Germany again,” says the DGAP expert. A concerted expulsion campaign with European partners would be better – an opinion that “Eastern Europe” editor-in-chief Manfred Sapper shares. He suspects that the overwhelming factual situation itself is increasing the pressure on other EU countries this time and could be right. At the EU summit on Thursday, the Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel was already open to a European reaction to the “Tiergartenmord” ruling.

What is certain is that the ruling already increases the pressure on the new foreign minister at the start of office. According to the political scientist Meister, in order to survive their first acid test, Baerbock will need clear words as well as pragmatism in dealing with Russia – without at the same time having too great expectations for an improvement in relations. Because these are already at their lowest point.