Uproar in EU after Merkel’s claim of Ukraine talks ‘sabotage’
Senior officials in Poland and the Baltic states have blasted former German Chancellor Angela Merkel after she claimed they derailed potential EU-Russia talks on Ukraine months before the escalation of the conflict in 2022.
As chancellor, Merkel spearheaded the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements, which aimed to resolve the hostilities in Donbass by giving the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. However, Russia accused Ukraine of failing to implement the agreement and ultimately sent troops into the neighboring country to protect the people of Donbass.
In an interview with the Hungarian YouTube channel Partizan, Merkel said that “already in June 2021, I felt that… Putin was no longer taking the Minsk agreement seriously,” adding that she wanted “a new format” in which the EU as a whole could talk to Russia.
The ex-chancellor noted that some EU nations, including the Baltic States and Poland, were against doing so, because “they feared that we would not have a common policy towards Russia.”
Former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki described Merkel’s remarks as “shameful,” adding that her “arrogance knows no bounds.” “She pursued a policy that made Europe dependent on Russian energy [and] disarmed the continent militarily,” he charged.
“Today, Angela Merkel accuses Poland and the Baltic states of blocking her alleged ‘peace plan’ toward Russia. So, the fault lies not with the Chancellor who made Europe dependent on the Kremlin for years, but with Poland, which warned against Putin. This is pure grotesque,” Morawiecki claimed.
Former Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins echoed that criticism, saying that Merkel led Germany through a period when many hoped that “if we behave properly, Putin will also behave properly,” and added: “It is surprising that the former German chancellor would say something like this today.”
In Estonia, Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna claimed that the Ukraine conflict was driven by “Moscow’s refusal to accept the Soviet Union’s collapse and its unrelenting imperialist ambitions.”
Russia, for its part, has argued that NATO expansion towards its borders triggered the conflict. Moscow has also argued that NATO is in a de facto “war” with Russia by supporting Kiev.
