More than 1,000 NATO paratroopers jumped from aircraft above Germany on Wednesday in one of the alliance's largest airborne training exercises in Europe since the Cold War ended, the US army said.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned on Sunday that conditions in Ukraine once again threatened to tip Europe into a full-blown military conflict.
Despite so-called Putin-sympathizers and eastern Germany's historic link to Mother Russia, a new poll shows that German and Russian opinions of one another have soured dramatically in recent years.
The leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine held talks Thursday over the conflict in east Ukraine, with all sides
calling for the full implementation of a ceasefire deal, the French presidency said.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev urged Moscow and Berlin on Tuesday to "re-establish trust" amid fierce tension caused by the ongoing Ukraine crisis.
Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel lamented the "insufficient" progress in resolving the Ukraine crisis after a telephone conversation Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a source close to the French president.
Russian gas giant Gazprom on
Thursday agreed to a plan with Shell, E.ON and OMV aimed at building a new gas
pipeline to Germany, the companies said in a statement.
Germany's foreign minister warned on Wednesday that Russia risked spurring a "spiral of escalation" with the West after President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was boosting its nuclear arsenal.
A survey published by the Pew Research Center on Wednesday showed that the majority of Germans would be against their country using military means to defend a Nato ally against Russian aggression.
World leaders at a G7 summit in Germany were on Monday set to present a united front against global security threats ranging from jihadist insurgencies to what US President Barack Obama condemned as "Russian aggression in Ukraine".
The leaders of Germany and the United States hammered home a tough line on Russia on Sunday at the start of a G7 summit dominated by crises in Ukraine and Greece.
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed "great concern" on Thursday over "serious violations" of a February truce after a flare-up of violence in Ukraine, warning against the return of a "military escalation".
Ex-Chancellor Helmut Schmidt has criticized the western powers for not inviting Vladimir Putin to the G7 summit taking place in Elmau, Bavaria later this week.
Schleswig Holstein's exports to Russia have dropped by 31 percent, state finance minister Reinhard Meyer said in comments reported by the Hamburger Abendblatt on Tuesday.
Ten pro-Kremlin Russian bikers, part of a larger group on a controversial World War II victory ride through Europe, reached the German border late Sunday, the Bavarian authorities said.
Berlin knew the risks of flying over war-torn east Ukraine before Flight MH17 was shot out of the sky last year but
did not inform German airlines, media reported on Sunday.
Germany said Wednesday it wants to sell howitzer-type mobile artillery vehicles to Lithuania as the Baltic NATO nation
boosts its defences amid concerns over neighbouring Russia.
The French, German, Russian and Ukranian foreign ministers expressed "grave concern" Tuesday at a meeting in Berlin about violations of a shaky ceasefire in separatist-held east Ukraine.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called on Russia and Ukraine to set in motion the next phase of the shaky Minsk peace accords aimed at stopping the fighting in east Ukraine, ahead of talks about their implementation in Berlin on Monday.
Soldiers from Nato's new rapid reaction force, including hundreds of German troops, were ready to deploy within eight hours of receiving the alert in an exercise simulating an urgent deployment to eastern Europe.
The French, German, Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers will meet in Berlin Monday for a follow-up on the fragile
ceasefire agreed in February to end a year of bloody war in eastern Ukraine.
At the EU Summit in Brussels on Thursday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her French counterpart, Francois Hollande, secured support for an extension of sanctions to the end of the year.
