The German government's hard line on Russia over the Ukraine war is coming under pressure at home amid growing worries about the resulting soaring energy prices and possible gas shortages in Europe's largest economy when winter comes.
Until now, all mainstream parties - from Chancellor Olaf Scholz's leftist Social Democrats and its junior coalition partners, the Greens and Free Democrats, to the opposition conservatives, had backed the tough Western sanctions imposed on Russia after it invaded its neighbour.
