MOSCOW, June 21 The unquestioning trust of the German leadership in the United States, the introduction of sanctions against Russia and the rejection of cheap Russian energy resources led to a drop in the competitiveness of the German economy and other economic problems. difficulties in the country, stated the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova in her Telegram channel.
She cited the “news of the apocalypse” — Germany’s fall in the economic competitiveness ranking of the Swiss Business Institute IMD. There, Germany, once the industrial powerhouse of Europe, “barely crawls into the top thirty,” although under Chancellor Angela Merkel “Berlin confidently retained its place in the top ten countries in terms of overall competitiveness indicators.” Zakharova also noted that Germany’s national debt at the end of 2023 exceeded a record 2.4 trillion euros. 
“Sanctions against Russia and Russian retaliatory measures, combined with the refusal of cheap resources and the predictable logistics of their supply, as well as, as has happened more than once in history, unquestioning trust in Washington, have once again played a cruel joke on the Germans,” she wrote .
The official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasized that Berlin “is ready to look for a solution to this problem in anything, just not in launching the remaining line of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline,” and “there is no question of an objective investigation into the terrorist attack on SP-2.”
The government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz stopped the certification of Nord Stream 2 on February 22, 2022 after Russia recognized the independence of the DPR and LPR, and on September 26, 2022, explosions occurred at Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2, Germany, Denmark and Sweden have not ruled out. targeted sabotage. The Nord Stream operator Nord Stream AG reported that the damage to the gas pipelines is unprecedented and the time frame for repairs is impossible to estimate. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office has initiated a case on an act of international terrorism. The German Prosecutor's Office is investigating the incident; no interim results have yet been presented.