Firstly, you do not get to decide how and what the Russians find offensive or, as the kids say, "triggering". And no one is saying it is Barbarossa. It is just really, really bad form, and I think that had that shield maiden Baerbock not stepped on the gas, Scholz would have obeyed his gut instinct - the correct one - and resisted sending German Panzers to kill Russian soldiers. It's just not a good look for Germany.

Remember, NATO was formed to "keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down". When Germany wanted to reunite, it was a really, really big thing for Europe in general but especially for the Soviets, who had lost 25 million people DEAD the last time Germany was united.

It was made even trickier since the USA wanted the newly reunited and reconstituted Germany to be part of NATO.

Gorbachev agreed to allow the reunification with the understanding that NATO would not expand "one inch" past Berlin. Well, we all know what happened with that promise, don't we?

I don't know how old you are, Michael, but I would bet you must be too young to have ever enjoyed a beer in West Germany when it was filled with 300,000 American soldiers and 1200 American tanks and God knows how many Pershing II nuclear missiles.