Berlin’s latest Russia panic is reckless even by its own standards

Berlin blamed Moscow for a drone scare without proof, then used it to deepen a confrontation Germany can least afford When you’ve burned all your bridges, go and burn some more.That seems to be the unspoken strategy of Berlin’s policy toward Moscow, which is the only plausible interpretation of Germany’s fresh efforts to damage its already abysmal relationship with Russia. Not that they have come as a surprise. Since the odd drone incident at the Leipzig/Halle airport at the beginning of August, the German political establishment and its always compliant mainstream media have been preparing the ground for explicitly blaming Moscow.The German public has been subject to what looks like a systematic campaign of escalating innuendo for almost a month. The story emerging from this barrage of unfounded claims and speculation masquerading as self-evident certainty has been changing: the role of an airport bus driver merely discovering the drone sitting quietly on the tarmac next to an extra-large Ukrainian transport plane or kicking it to the ground with a Bruce-Lee-type flying kick, as initially claimed, has remained unclear and contradictory. Initial reports of another drone colliding w...