Angela Merkel says she will not apologize for her policies during her 16 years as German chancellor, dismissing criticism they are in some way responsible. Russia Invades Ukrainein her first public comments since leaving office last year.
“I don’t have to blame myself,” said Mrs. Merkel tell an audience on Tuesday at the Berliner Ensemble theater in Berlin during an interview with a reporter for the magazine Der Spiegel.
“I tried so hard,” she said. “Sorry it didn’t work.”
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, Germany’s political class has been forced to rethink its decades-long approach to Moscow, seen as a policy of “change through trade.” commercial”. Critics have long argued that it is too soft on Moscow.
Ms. Merkel has been criticized for promoting German-Russian business interests during her term – in particular, for her support of the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Both Ukraine and its Eastern European neighbors opposed the Kremlin-backed project, which was frozen after the invasion.
In the interview, Mrs. Merkel said she was never under the illusion that “change through trade” would soften. President Vladimir V. Putin of the Russia, and she defends maintaining at least some commercial relations. She affirmed her stance towards Moscow after war broke out with Ukraine in 2014, but “you can’t completely ignore each other,” she said.
President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskysought to describe the approach that led to the invasion in February.
In April, after atrocities were recorded in the Bucha suburb of Kyiv as Russian forces withdrew, Mr Zelensky said: “I invite Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy to visit Bucha, to see the 14-year concession policy. What does the Russian ministry have. led to,” referring to Nicolas Sarkozy, who served as president of France from 2007 to 2012.
Mrs. Merkel did not shy away from blaming herself in the interview. She cited the fact that it was “impossible to create a successful security architecture” as a failure of her government. The former prime minister said she now asks herself: “Can more be done to prevent such a tragedy?”
She defended one of her most criticized moves regarding Ukraine – her opposition to Ukraine and Georgia being given a formal “membership action plan” to join NATO in 2008. and other leaders argue that the countries are not ready and that such a move would disrupt relations with Moscow. She said in the interview that “it would be tantamount to a declaration of war” for Putin.
Finally, all of the NATO member states agreed not to present an action plan for membership, but promised they would at some point in the future.
Ms. Merkel said that Ukraine was dangerously divided between pro-reform political forces and those closer to Russia, and that its democracy would not be able to withstand a Russian invasion like this. Currently.
She also defended her role in negotiating the Minsk peace accords in the Belarusian capital in 2014 and 2015, an attempt to resolve a war in the Donbas region that failed to prevent hostilities. . She suggested that Mr. Putin could have caused great damage in Ukraine if the agreements were not implemented.
“Diplomacy isn’t wrong just because it doesn’t work,” she said. “So I don’t see why I have to say it’s wrong, and I’m not going to apologize for it.”
