Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that she nary longer saw immoderate anticipation of influencing Russian President Vladimir Putin toward the extremity of her word successful office.
In an interview with German mag Der Spiegel, Merkel talked astir her last encounters with Putin, saying that passim her farewell sojourn to Moscow successful August 2021 she felt “in presumption of powerfulness politics, you’re done,” adding that “for Putin, lone powerfulness counts.”
She cited the information that Putin brought Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on to this past sojourn arsenic different motion of her crumbling power, arsenic antecedently they met “often successful private,” she said.
Merkel besides said that the struggle successful Ukraine “didn’t travel arsenic a surprise” arsenic she said by 2021 the Minsk agreement, which was struck successful 2015 aimed astatine ending the struggle successful eastbound Ukraine, was “hollowed out.”
According to Merkel, she unsuccessfully tried to acceptable up “an autarkic European treatment format with Putin” successful the summertime of 2021 unneurotic with French President Emmanuel Macron, but realized that she nary longer had the clout to asseverate herself successful the European Council either, with the extremity of her clip successful bureau looming.
Merkel besides defended herself, saying that unneurotic with then-U.S. President Barack Obama, “we tried everything aft Russia’s annexation of Crimea [in 2014] to forestall further incursions by Russia into Ukraine and coordinated our sanctions successful detail.”
The remarks travel soon aft she was publicly criticized by erstwhile Bundestag president and CDU enactment workfellow Wolfgang Schäuble for not acknowledging mistakes successful her Russia argumentation implicit the past 16 years.
Germany’s dependence on Russian state deliveries grew continuously nether Merkel’s enactment successful the years anterior to Moscow’s full-scale penetration of Ukraine.
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