Angela Merkel said she had “nothing to apologize” for her policy toward Moscow, as the former German chancellor denied that she had “pacified” Vladimir Putin in his efforts over the years to ease tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
Merkel gave her first interview since stepping down as chancellor last December. It was also the first time she was questioned publicly about her policy toward Putin, which has been the subject of increasing attention since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on February 24th.
“Diplomacy is not wrong just because it fails,” she said. “So I don’t see why I should say it’s wrong, and I won’t apologize for it.”
She said of the war: “Looking back, I’m glad I can’t blame myself for trying too hard to prevent such an event.
The comments provoked a mocking response from Mikhail Podoliak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “If Merkel has always known that Russia is planning a war and that Putin’s goal is to destroy the EU, then why build Nord Stream 2?” he said, referring to the controversial gas pipeline, which supplies Russian gas directly to Germany, which the Merkel government has backed.
“The former chancellor said she was not naive,” Podoliak added. “So why is Europe addicted to Russian oil and gas?”
Merkel has long been considered one of Germany’s greatest post-war leaders. But its reputation has deteriorated since the outbreak of war in Russia, with many in Kyiv and Berlin accusing it of making fun of Putin and giving priority to economic ties with Moscow over support for Ukraine.
Her interview with a crowded audience at the Berliner Ensemble with Alexander Osang, a reporter for the news magazine Der Spiegel, showed that she had been stung by the critics.
Usually, the cool Merkel, who admitted that she was “depressed” by the conflict in Ukraine, was combative and emotional, wanting to justify and refute what she apparently considered unfair accusations of her behavior in office.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a Sochi summit to discuss issues such as Ukraine in 2017. © Yuri Kochetkov / EPA
Much of the criticism has focused on her policy of “Wandel durch Handel” – or “change through trade” – which is based on the idea that deepening economic ties between Russia and the West will encourage political change in Moscow and the transition to liberalism and Western values.
Merkel said she never believed in the “illusion” that Putin could be changed through trade. She said her view was that if there could not be close political relations between Europe and Russia, “then at least it would make sense to have trade relations, because you cannot completely ignore each other”.
She also defended her insistence on always keeping the channels of communication with Putin open. “Russia is the second largest nuclear power in the world,” she said. “I can’t pretend it just doesn’t exist.”
“The interests of the country I ruled meant finding a modus vivendi with Russia, in which we are not at war, but we can try to coexist in some way, despite all our differences,” she said, to applause.
Many of the attacks on Merkel focused on her diplomacy to end the conflict in Donbas, Ukraine’s eastern border region, where Russian-backed separatists revolted in 2014.
Germany and France brokered the Minsk agreements, which froze the conflict. But the separatists remained in control of the territory they occupied in 2014, and hostilities did not stop.
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Kyiv signed the Minsk 2 agreement in 2015 after Russian forces intervened in the conflict in support of the separatists, inflicting heavy losses in the town of Debaltseve. Merkel said the agreement was reached because “6,000 Ukrainian soldiers are at risk of being surrounded in Debaltseve” and the deal “introduced a peace of mind”. The shaky peace he established also gave Ukraine “seven years to grow to what it is now.”
She added that she did not know what would have happened if Putin had just kept going in 2014, and no one had worried about that.
Merkel was also sharply criticized for her reluctance to offer Ukraine a path to NATO membership at the crucial Western military alliance’s Bucharest summit in 2008. Merkel said Ukraine at the time was a “deeply divided” country with an “unstable” A democracy that was “ruled by oligarchs.”
She said she did not want to provoke Putin, adding that he would view Ukraine’s NATO membership as a “declaration of war”.
“[He] I wouldn’t just let that happen. ”
Merkel also defended herself against accusations that she did not react strongly enough to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
She cites EU sanctions imposed on Moscow, which have been repeatedly lifted, Russia’s exclusion from the G8 group of major industrialized nations, NATO’s decision to spend 2% of each country’s gross domestic product on defense, and a sharp increase in Germany’s defense budget from € 32 billion in 2014 to € 50 billion now.
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