“I left office, and the aggression of Putin began,” former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a recent interview. Merkel told the Hungarian outlet Partizán that by mid-2021, she thought Russian President Vladimir Putin was no longer serious about the so-called Minsk Agreements, peace deals meant to stop the fighting in eastern Ukraine. She said she wanted to push for a new round of talks with herself, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Putin. But, Merkel says, Poland and the Baltic states opposed the idea. Merkel implies that their action shut down a chance for diplomacy.
It is striking that after all that transpired under Merkel’s leadership and the catastrophe that followed, the former chancellor remains unwilling to recognize her own mistakes.
Merkel conveniently forgets that Russia’s aggression began long before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, sending troops into eastern Ukraine and annexing Crimea in 2014. And Merkel dodged the fact that if Russia ever intended to honor the Minsk agreements, the full-scale invasion of February 2022 would never have happened.
COMEY MAKES HISTORY AS FIRST FORMER FBI DIRECTOR TO FACE ARRAIGNMENT
When Moscow annexed Crimea and fueled war in eastern Ukraine in 2014, Western allies pushed Kyiv into signing the Minsk accords, refusing to provide Ukraine with defensive weapons and letting Moscow get away without real costs. The Kremlin then repeatedly violated the Minsk deal, ignoring its provisions while Western governments looked the other way. In practice, Minsk was never a path to peace but rather a tool that allowed Russia to hold Ukraine hostage and buy time.
For Poland and the Baltic states, long attuned to Moscow’s behavior and wary of how Berlin and Paris enjoy accommodating the Kremlin, opposing another round of talks was not reckless but necessary. They feared that instead of deterring Moscow with resolve, Europe would once again trade away pieces of Ukraine’s sovereignty and hand Russia greater control. Their stance reflected a far clearer grasp of Moscow’s playbook. Subsequent events have sadly proved them right.
If blame is to be placed, then, it falls not on Eastern Europe but on Merkel’s own decisions. After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Germany should have reduced its dependence on Moscow. Instead, Merkel pushed ahead with the Nord Stream II pipeline in 2015, deepening reliance on Russian gas. At the same time, she presided over the shutdown of Germany’s nuclear plants, removing the one alternative that could have limited Moscow’s leverage. She also refused to engage in any serious defensive rearmament campaign, leaving Europe’s strongest economy with one of Europe’s weakest militaries. Both Germany and Europe were left more exposed, while Ukraine’s security was sacrificed.
More absurd, Merkel and other European states continued to export arms to Russia even after 2014. Berlin alone accounted for over a third of all EU sales, approving €121.8 million worth of equipment between 2010 and 2020, including rifles and “special protection” vehicles. Russia’s military went on to use this and other European equipment to kill Ukrainians in the east.
CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE KATIE PORTER SECURES EMILY’S LIST ENDORSEMENT
Merkel’s shameful record also includes leading opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia at the 2008 Bucharest summit. The compromise left both countries in a gray zone: it offered vague promises of eventual membership but denied the protections of Article 5, appeasing Moscow’s demands. A few months later, Georgia lived through the former chancellor’s policy decisions when Russia invaded in August, and 16 years later, Ukraine pays the price with daily missile strikes.
Merkel’s legacy is not one of overdue caution but of blatant misjudgment. She consistently underestimated Putin. But the war in Ukraine is the result of years of appeasement, dependence, and denial that took place under her watch. To now fault Poland and the Baltics for rejecting another doomed “dialogue” is to deflect. The blame belongs with Merkel’s choices.