Germany and Russia: likely bedfellows.

It was the most excruciating moment in German-Russian relations. Asked what he thought of Vladimir Putin, given Russia's alarming slide on press freedom, human rights and many other matters, Gerhard Schröder came up with a memorable phrase. Putin, Schröder said, was "a lupenrein democrat" – a word that translates as flawless or immaculate.

Given Russia's second brutal entry into Chechnya, Putin's decision in 2004 to abolish gubernatorial elections, and the squeeze on Russia's opposition, Schröder's comment was embarrassing and ridiculous. During his time as chancellor, Schröder cultivated what came to be known as a Männerfreundschaft: a close male buddy relationship in which the two leaders – Putin's German is fluent from his spy days in Dresden — used the backslapping "Du" form.

Under Schröder, little was said on Russia's dismal human rights record. And Putin's belief that he could buy up Europe's political elite was depressingly proved correct when, weeks after leaving office in late 2005, the ex-chancellor took a big-paying job as supervisory chairman on the Nord Stream project. The German-Russian pipeline – which will see Russian gas transported under the Baltic Sea, avoiding Poland – predictably enrages and irritates Germany's eastern EU neighbours, as well as Sweden.

An interesting question ahead of Sunday's general election is how much Germany's Russia policy has changed under chancellor Angela Merkel. At first it appeared Merkel would take a more critical tone in her dealings with Putin. Merkel, of course, grew up in communist East Germany, a Soviet client state. She warily understands the KGB, Putin's old employer. An outstanding student, she won prizes for her Russian. (During an early teenage trip to Moscow, she returned to her rustic pastor family home with the Beatles' Yellow Submarine.)

During her first visit to Russia as chancellor, in January 2006, Merkel made a point of meeting human rights activists – an apparent break with the sleazy Schröder era. She also promised to visit Warsaw (though she never actually got there) in an attempt to assuage the unhappy Poles and Baltic states over Nord Stream. And though I can't vouch for their private conversations, it seems unlikely that Volodya and Angie use the "Du" form with each other.

In reality, however, Germany's Russian policy under Merkel hasn't changed — and is simply a more sober form of Schröderism. This isn't surprising. Schröder's former chief of staff, Franz-Walter Steinmeier, the architect of Schröder's pro-Russian foreign policy, has spent the past four years sitting in Germany's grand coalition government as Merkel's foreign minister. A fierce opponent of all attempts to "isolate" Russia, Steinmeier is now her rival for the chancellorship.

Germany's pro-Russian business lobbies remain as strong as ever. And while there are differences in emphasis between Merkel's Christian Democrats and Steinmeier's Social Democrats on Russia, both agree that Germany needs Russia's energy. Gazprom even sponsors a German football team, Schalke 04. (The political scientist Jochen Franzke dubs the SPD attitude as "Keep quiet and gas". The CDU attitude, he says, is "Talk but gas".)

As Alexander Rahr, the programme director of the German Council on Foreign Relations, points out, Merkel is pursuing the same Russia policy with Russia's president Dmitry Medvedev as Schröder did with Putin, and as her political mentor Helmut Kohl did with Boris Yeltsin.

Summed up, it goes like this: Germany is Russia's closest ally inside Europe. Berlin remains a pragmatic advocate for Russia within the EU and Nato – to the point of defending Moscow from attacks by the new EU members of eastern Europe.

There are, of course, sound reasons for this: Germany is Russia's biggest export and trading partner. Germany is also the biggest EU customer for Russian oil and gas. Three million Russians, meanwhile, most of them of Jewish heritage, now live in Germany, forming the second largest non-German population after the Turks. Germany has an embassy and four consulates in Russia, as well more than 300 NGOs actively involved in work with Moscow.

According to Rahr, there is a historical explanation for Germany's Sonderverhältnis, or special relationship, with Russia, which appears to have survived two devastating world wars. (Russia puts its dead from the last one at 27 million. The fact that Germany isn't a geopolitical rival to Russia, like the US, may also help.)

"Germany has a special relationship with Russia over centuries, going back not just to Bismarck, but to the Russian kings. We have closer links than the French, the Swiss, or the Austrians, and the Poles and the Swedes," Rahr says. "Education and German universities are less critical of Russian history, more interested in the allure of Russia, and more understanding of Russia's role in Europe than in other countries," he adds.

Over the past two years Merkel has demonstrated that her politics are every bit as pro-Russian as Schröder's. She has consolidated several of the deals begun by the Schröder administration. She is pressing ahead with Nord Stream. Merkel is also firmly opposed to extending Nato membership to Ukraine or Georgia – a red line for the Kremlin, which now says it is entitled to a zone of influence in its near abroad. Merkel has also recently indicated that she is not averse to Gazprom investing in Germany.

She still talks about human rights, of course. When Russia's president Dmitry Medvedev visited Germany over the summer, Merkel called for an investigation into the murder of the activist Natalia Estemirova, who was abducted in July from her home in Chechnya's Grozny and shot.

Merkel may not be buddies with Medvedev. But she clearly prefers dealing with him to meeting Putin. As everyone in Russia knows, however, Medvedev is not actually the man in charge.