Geopolitics: The world is going crazy – and what are we doing?

English version of  "Die Welt ist verrückt – und was machen wir"

At some point those in charge at the Kremlin must have lost patience. In any case, on a cold Sunday in January troops and tanks were sent to Vilnius to squash any spectre of Lithuanian independence. Fourteen people died that day: Some were run over by tanks and more than a thousand were injured.

This wasn’t a dystopia, a gloomy preview of where Vladmir Putin’s aggressive polices might end. That so-called ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Vilnius took place, however, twenty-three years ago, and the man who gave the order to put down the Lithuanian freedom movement was Mikhail Gorbachev. Yes, the very same man who to this day is celebrated as the West’s best friend and the man who made German unification possible. In Berlin today there are many politicians who think back and ask themselves: if Gorbachev was in a position to do such a thing, what can we expect from Putin?