Everything's fine.

I think our interest right now is to buy time and not allow ourselves to get distracted by side issues.

The most important thing for the other side should have been to secure unity between America and Europe.

Instead, Germany in particular has focused entirely on itself, the state attention, conscription, and so on.

None of that is really relevant in a crisis that is moving this fast.

The chancellor responds.

When we talk about communication, what I envision is that you send a clear message saying, "We will ensure that if worst comes to worst, the local energy supply is guaranteed.

We will ensure that food is available.

We now turn to his televised address.

Fellow citizens, since this morning, we have been facing a new and serious situation.

After the invasion of Ukraine, we are now witnessing, for the second time, an act of Russian military aggression in Europe, against Europe, against our freedom.

And this time, the target is our NATO ally and fellow EU member, Lithuania.

The chancellor calls for unity.

We must also stand up to those voices within our own country that are calling for us to back down.

I would highly welcome us acting much more as a unified front in a situation like this.

This team is led by the German chancellor.

We have a shared objective, to push back against Russia, to support our allies, and to make clear that Germany is ready to play an active role.

Once everyone has taken their seats around the table, the chancellor opens the meeting.

From my perspective, we have two central areas of action.

First, we need to respond publicly.

What narrative do we present? What explanation do we give the people in Germany? Second, and this concerns me just as much, what measures are needed to protect the population? What steps can the Bundeswehr take internally to ensure it can act quickly if necessary? And are there additional areas, particularly in foreign policy towards Poland and other neighbors, where we need to act now? I would welcome input from the respective experts around this table.

But with the American position unclear, the German government begins preparing its own response.

I believe we've long passed the point of this wasn't us, or we didn't do that, or of merely suspecting that Russia is launching a hybrid attack against us.

Otherwise, we'll never break out of this reactive mode.

The next thing that will happen is that we'll have drone sightings over airports again, air traffic will be severely disrupted, and even then, we'll just be reacting once more.

What I'd like to see is for everyone around this table to think about how we can take the initiative in our respective areas and show the other side that we are capable of acting.

In terms of deterrence, I believe that is exactly what we need to do.

And I think that is what people in Germany and our allies expect from us.

And it wants the public to see that.

For this version, we translated their original statements into English and had them voiced by fellow journalists.

We have a shared objective to push back against Russia, to support our allies and to make clear that Germany is ready to play an active role.

Once everyone has taken their seats around the table, the chancellor opens the meeting.

From my perspective, we have two central areas of action.

First, we need to respond publicly.

What narrative do we present? What explanation do we give the people in Germany? Second, and this concerns me just as much, what measures are needed to protect the population? What steps can the Bundeswehr take internally to ensure it can act quickly if necessary? And are there additional areas, particularly in foreign policy, towards Poland and other neighbors where we need to act now? I would welcome input from the respective experts around this table.