“Invited to Bucha, taken to Florence.” In April, Angela Merkel was harshly criticized on the Bild and popular German newspapers for visiting Italy shortly after the news of the atrocities in Bucha, rather than accepting an invitation to visit Ukraine. But the (former) Chancellor does not regret, in a long public interview that marks her return to the scene. The first time she talks about war, Russian aggression, her relationship with Putin, and that she responds about what she does not consider to have been her mistakes, for example the North Stream 2 pipeline, or the Minsk agreements .
“This trip to Italy was very important for me for my process of distancing from politics,” says the Chancellor who will be forever, even after the farewell (formerly not so suitable for someone like Merkel, although, she explains , spent all these months reading novels and long books about the Baltic, the first day was with a hoodie to hear Macbeth of Skhakespeare in audio-book in earphones). Hers is a return to the theater (at the Berliner Ensemble Theater, in a public interview) that deserves to be told, because Merkel does not regret at all the relationship she had with Vladimir Putin, of North Stream 2, and not even having said no to all. Ukraine’s entry into NATO in 2008. Russia’s president allegedly perceived a 2008 NATO membership plan, which was blocked by his government, as a “declaration of war”. Although she did not share Putin’s point of view, Merkel noted that she “knew how she thought”, and “did not want to provoke him further”. “My heart has always beaten for Ukraine,” but she sought a modus vivendi with Russia. But Merkel also says many other things, which can guide European politics even now.
“It’s a great sadness that it didn’t work, but I don’t blame myself for not trying,” he said of the 2014 Minsk agreements with Russia. According to him, they calmed the situation by giving Ukraine time to become what it is today: «What would have happened if no one had cared in 2014 and Putin had continued? I absolutely don’t want to know, “she explained, and argued that she was against a plan to bring Ukraine into NATO because she wanted to prevent escalation with Russia and Ukraine was not ready:” That wasn’t Ukraine we know today … The country was not stable, it was riddled with corruption. Even the forces of reform [Yulia] Tymoshenko e [Viktor] Yushchenko disagreed greatly. This means that it was not a country whose democracy was internally strengthened ». He said Ukraine was “ruled by oligarchs” at the time.
Putin’s condemnation is dry, Merkel speaks of “brutal contempt for Russia’s international law in Ukraine”, and also rejects without hesitation – to the question “mediate with Putin?” – the idea of sitting at a table with the Russian dictator: «I don’t have the impression that at the moment it is of any use. Putin has made a decision that I consider catastrophic and fatal. I don’t think there is much to talk about, especially not without talking to Ukraine. Now it is very, very important that the European Union remains united, ”she suggests, and perhaps Macron and his successor Scholz will hear a little ringing.
Merkel still defends the reasons that led her to work for North Stream 2 – the German Russian gas pipeline – and the choice to continue the policy of supporting trade with Russia, saying that Europe and Russia were close and could not ignore each other. You said you faced criticism and many questions about the former Soviet Union during your tenure, but it was never possible to end the Cold War: “We simply failed to create a security architecture to prevent it.”
There is no negotiation on territorial concessions, for Merkel (even here the ears will ring at the Macron theoretician of “do not humiliate Russia”): “What happened is a serious mistake on the part of Russia … an objective break with all the rules of international law that allow us to live together in peace in Europe. If we began to spend century after century discussing which territory belongs to whom, we would be at war relentlessly. ”