“Today I consider the call for negotiations to be completely unrealistic”
Cabaret artist Dieter Nuhr in the ARD talk show “Maischberger”.
Source: Oliver Ziebe/© WDR
A year ago, the cabaret artist Dieter Noor signed Alice Schwarzer’s first open letter, in which prominent figures warned of arms distribution and the danger of world war. Today he says: “I don’t see an alternative to what we’re doing now.”
BPropaganda must be learned. Vladimir Putin visited the occupied territories of Ukraine for the first time over the weekend. After Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula, there was an overnight visit to the largely destroyed port city of Mariupol. The Russian president later deepened the alliance with the People’s Republic of China, whose President Xi traveled to Moscow for a full three days.
Sandra Maischberger discussed Putin’s machinations Wednesday evening with former ARD reporter Thomas Roth, Russian opposition politician Garry Kasparov, cabaret artist Dieter Noor, and journalists Cherno Jobede, Kerstin Palzer, and Wolfram Weimer. Weimar assessed his appearance as saying that Putin had created “weak images” for propaganda purposes. He appeared “almost lonely.” According to the publisher, Russian military bloggers have criticized the fact that the Russian president, unlike Ukraine’s President Zelensky, does not see the front-line soldiers.
Garry Kasparov calls Putin’s visit a ‘bad joke’
ART reporter Balzer described the visit to Mariupol as “pure propaganda”. Putin’s presentation of himself as the “savior of the human side” is shocking. Roth found even clearer words. The president’s visit to a city where “numerous war crimes are alleged to have been committed” was a “genuine provocation” and “baseline cynicism”. Garry Kasparov, tuning in from Croatia, criticized Putin’s visit to devastated Mariupol as “a bad joke”.
He described Russia as a “police state”, but now it is a “fascist dictatorship”. Germans don’t want to hear comparisons with “Nazi Germany”, the former world chess champion explained, “but unfortunately that’s the only parallel I can think of”. According to Kasparov, Russia’s “imperial hunger” must end. This requires a “military victory” for Ukraine.
“He supports all arms deliveries to Ukraine – without limit,” Kasparov said, immediately adding a limit: “Certainly below the nuclear threshold.” Wolfram Weimar had previously established himself word for word in arms distribution. ARD moderator Thomas Roth insisted that “all measures” must be taken to prevent Ukraine’s failure. Otherwise there would be “massive consequences for democratic Europe”. Putin “set aside all standards created after World War II.”
Dieter Nuhr explained his new position to Maischberger
Accordingly, he expects little from possible negotiations with the Russian president. “What do you want to sign with this guy who doesn’t mind signing anything?” asked the journalist rhetorically. “Forget it,” Kasparov said nonchalantly when asked about the negotiations. An attitude shared by Dieter Nuhr in a final interview: “I think today that the call for negotiations is completely unrealistic.”
Last spring, cabaret artist Emma signed the first open letter to editor Alice Schwarzer, in which celebrities warned of arms distribution and the danger of world war. A year later he sees things differently. Although he still feared a world war, the satirist explained, “I see no alternative to what we are doing now”.
Maischberger also focused on the demonstrative alliance between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Weimar recalled a Chinese official’s state visit to Moscow of “an alliance meeting between two mafia bosses” allied against the West. Russia is now the largest oil and gas supplier to the Middle Kingdom.
This “axis shift” is “bad news” for the West. Kasparov was also worried. “Russia should not be turned into China’s northern province,” the opposition figure demanded. His own country must start over, pay reparations and apologize for war crimes.
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