Merkel says she has “exhausted all means” to prevent conflict in Ukraine

Former German chancellor Angela Merkel in an interview with Die Zeit statedthat during her tenure she “exhausted all means” to resolve the situation in Ukraine.

“I tried with all the means at my disposal to prevent this situation. The fact that it failed does not prove that it was wrong to try,” she said.

Merkel reiterated that the efforts under the Minsk agreements were the right ones, but to her “great chagrin, there were quite a few who were not so interested.”

Senator of the Federation Council Andrei Klishas in his Telegram channel named Merkel’s constant return to the issue of the Minsk agreements is not accidental. “Impossible they [минские соглашения] began after Germany, France and the United States made it clear to Ukraine that no one would demand from Kiev the implementation of peace agreements, Kiev should arm and prepare for war, and for “lack of progress in the implementation of the Minsk agreements” sanctions will be extended against Russia” , he wrote.

At the end of 2022, Merkel said that all participants understood that the Minsk agreements would only freeze the conflict in eastern Ukraine, but would not solve it. Later, former French President Francois Hollande and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko spoke in a similar way. At the end of January, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the West was waging a war against Russia not a hybrid one, but almost a real one. The minister also pointed out that Western leaders involved in the signing of the Minsk agreements admitted that the agreements were only aimed at buying time, during which Ukraine continued to be pumped with weapons in order to project a threat against Russia from Kiev.

The first Minsk agreements were signed in September 2014 by representatives of the trilateral contact group (Russia, Ukraine, OSCE). They completed the active part of the hostilities in the south-east of Ukraine. The second Minsk agreements were signed already in 2015. They were also attended by representatives of two European countries – Germany and France.