Pursued by bear: German chancellor Angela Merkel has forged a ‘strategic partnership’ with Russia despite early tricky relations with prime minister Vladimir Putin

When Angela Merkel was first elected German chancellor in November 2005, the country’s eastern neighbours looked on in anticipation. The pastor’s daughter raised in communist East Germany had pledged to end the cosy rapport forged with Moscow by Gerhard Schröder, her predecessor, and put the interests of central Europe at the heart of her government’s foreign policy.