‘I won’t apologise’: Angela Merkel defends relationship with Putin

‘Diplomacy was not wrong if it doesn’t succeed,’ Merkel says

Wednesday 08 June 2022 13:51 EDT

Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin meet in 2020 (Pavel Golovkin/EPA)

Former German chancellor Angela Merkel has said she has “nothing to apologise for” in her handling of Russia during her 16 years in office.

In her first major interview since leaving her post, Ms Merkel denied a suggestion that she and others appeased Russian president Vladimir Putin which ultimately led to the Ukraine invasion.

Speaking at the Berliner Ensemble theatre to German journalist Alexander Osang, she said: “I tried to work toward calamity being averted, and diplomacy was not wrong if it doesn’t succeed.

“I don’t see that I should say now that it was wrong, and so I won’t apologise.”

She called Putin’s invasion “a big mistake on Russia’s part” and said there was “no excuse” for the “brutal” attack, adding that “it is a matter of great sorrow” that her efforts “didn’t succeed” but she said, “I don’t blame myself now for trying”.

Former German chancellor Angela Merkel has said she has “nothing to apologise for” in her handling of Russia while she was in office (AP)

A fluent Russian-speaker, after growing up in the former communist East Germany, Ms Merkel drew criticism from the United States and others for supporting the planned Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, designed to deliver Russian gas directly to Germany.

But she defended her policy of supporting trade with Russia, saying Europe and Russia were neighbours that could not ignore each other.

The former chancellor also defended the 2015 peace agreement that she and then-French president Francois Hollande brokered in Minsk, Belarus, which aimed at easing fighting in eastern Ukraine between government forces and Russian-backed separatists.

She argued that the peace process bought Ukraine time to develop into a nation and build its military, without which, “Putin could have wrought gigantic damage,” she said.

However, she admitted the sanctions against Russia over its annexation of Crimea in 2014 “could have been stronger” but added that there was no majority sentiment for doing so at the time.

“We didn’t do nothing either,” she emphasised, recalling that Russia was thrown out of the G8 and that Nato set a target for countries to work towards spending 2 per cent of their GDP on defence.

Ms Merkel called Putin’s invasion “a big mistake on Russia’s part” (Reuters)

Defending her decision to oppose Ukraine’s Nato membership in 2008, she said a green light would have accelerated Russian aggression on a less-prepared Ukraine.