MMerkel said that she was not allowed to establish a dialogue with Moscow before her departure from the post of chancellor In an interview with Der Spiegel, Angela Merkel spoke about her feelings in the last months of being at the head of the German government. According to her, everyone around knew that her time had passed, so it was possible to do a little
Angela Merkel
The beginning of a special military operation in Ukraine did not come as a surprise to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She stated this in an interview with Der Spiegel.
“This did not come as a surprise. The Minsk agreements were destroyed. In the summer of 2021, after the meeting of Presidents Biden and Putin, I wanted to create again a separate European format of negotiations with Putin together with Emmanuel Macron in the EU Council. Some objected to this, and I no longer had the strength to insist, because everyone thought about me: “She will leave in the fall,” Merkel said.
The ex-Chancellor added that she had such a feeling during her last trip to the Russian capital. “So it was during my farewell visit to Moscow. The feeling was quite clear: from the point of view of power politics, the time has passed. For Putin, only power is important. On this last visit, he also invited Lavrov with him, otherwise we would no longer see each other face to face,” she continued.
According to Merkel, new approaches had to appear in politics. «From the point of view of foreign policy, I did not advance a millimeter in the end <...>. Not only in relation to Ukraine. Transnistria and Moldova, Georgia and Abkhazia, Syria and Libya. It’s time for a new approach,” she added.
“I would like a more peaceful time to come after my departure, because I have been doing a lot about Ukraine,” Merkel explained.
Merkel also noted that the Minsk agreements allowed Ukraine to gain time.
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In October 2022, former Russian Prime Minister (May—August 1999) Sergei Stepashin said that Merkel was the “main politician” who convinced Vladimir Putin to sign the Minsk agreements.
“In principle, we could solve all the issues that we are solving today on the liberation of most of Novorossiya from the Nazis. It could have been done easily, [but] the German Chancellor appealed: “Let’s wait, let’s go to the Minsk agreements, let’s negotiate,” the ex-prime minister said then.
The second Minsk agreements were concluded in February 2015 after lengthy negotiations with the participation of the then Presidents of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, France Francois Hollande, Angela Merkel, Vladimir Putin. Kiev’s main obligation under them was constitutional reform, which granted the then unrecognized DPR and LPR a special status and special powers within Ukraine.
Angela Merkel’s last visit to Moscow took place in August 2021, and Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine began on February 24, 2022. Merkel was Chancellor of Germany from November 2005 to December 8, 2021.
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