🇩🇪 Merz on Russia: "American-French historian Astolphe de Custine once said, after travelling through Russia: "Russia is, in our time, the strangest country for the observer, because in it one finds the deepest barbarity alongside the highest civilization." Quote is 200 years old and, unfortunately, still holds true today. We are currently experiencing this country in a state of profound barbarity. Our European goal is to prevent the Russian state from continuing the war militarily and from financing it economically. Reason and humanitarian arguments will not convince Putin."