“Putin Uses The Refugee Crisis To Weaken Merkel“, by Judy Dempsey as originally published at Carnegie Europe,
Back in December 2015, when it became clear that refugees from the Middle East would continue to head toward Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel reassured her conservative Christian Democratic Union party that everything was under control. All she needed, she told party members, was more time. Germany could manage the influx of over 1 million refugees and asylum seekers.