Mecklenburg-West Pomerania

“We see Russia’s influence on European politics in the microcosm of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania,” said Claudia Müller, a Green lawmaker from the state.

In October 2014, seven months after Russia illegally annexed Crimea, Mr. Sellering, then governor of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, hosted the state’s first “Russia Day.”

Less than two weeks later, Mr. Warnig, by now the chief executive of Nord Stream 2, pulled up outside the Mecklenburg-West Pomerania state house, carrying a bouquet.

Mr. Schröder’s conservative successor, Angela Merkel, whose constituency was in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, approved Nord Stream 2 after Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea, and defended it even after Moscow hacked the German Parliament, assassinated a Chechen rebel in central Berlin and poisoned the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny.

Neither of them spoke out against it, nor apparently minded as Moscow invested generously in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania and reactivated Cold War networks, including former spies, to deliver on the pipeline.