They talk about dependency on Russia being a "mistake". But with so many high-rank people (including former Chancellor) being paid by Russia openly (and who knows how many secretly beyond that) - does it look like a "mistake" or a deliberate policy on Russia's side and widespread corruption being ignored on Germany's side?
But I think that the position of "until we have a court decision proving corruption, one could not reasonably talk of a possibility of corruption, and discuss appearance of conflict of interest" is naive at best, and completely boneheaded at the usual case. Corruption is notoriously hard to prove, especially "soft" corruption where there's no direct bribery but more like alignment of interests diverting the interests of corrupt functionaries from serving the people (who even knows that that means?) to serving their private wallet and/or ideology (well, that one is much clearer).
And there's tons of the press talking about German politicians being too cozy with Russia, even pre-dating the war. So what? It's not like German voters cared.
