- October 6, 2025
- 5:03 pm
- World News
In a new interview, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel once again found herself at the center of a political storm. By stating that “part of the responsibility for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine lies with Poland and the Baltic states”, she not only stirred Europe but also reminded of the unaddressed mistakes of the era of compromises with the Kremlin.
According to Merkel, in 2021 she proposed creating a new negotiation format between the European Union and Vladimir Putin — even before the full-scale invasion began. The Minsk agreements, the ex-chancellor claims, no longer made sense, and a new channel of dialogue was needed. However, Warsaw and the Baltic countries, fearing a split within the EU, blocked the initiative.
“It didn’t work out. I left office, and soon Putin’s aggression began,” Merkel said.
She added that the COVID-19 pandemic “paralyzed diplomacy” and did not allow leaders to hold meetings where compromises could be found.
Eastern Europe responded harshly
Merkel’s statement caused an immediate wave of indignation. In Estonia, the parliament convened an emergency meeting of the foreign affairs committee. Its chairman, Marko Mihkelson, stated that the words of the former chancellor “cast a shadow on her political legacy and sound like an attempt to justify her own passivity.”
Former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was no less harsh. In his post on X (formerly Twitter), he wrote:
“Angela Merkel has proven to be one of the politicians who have caused the most harm to Europe in the last hundred years. Her blind faith in dialogue with Putin led to war.”
A history that doesn’t let go
From 2015 to 2021, Germany was a key participant in the Minsk agreements — a fragile structure that kept the conflict in Donbas within the framework of diplomacy. However, it was in the last years of her rule that Merkel observed how Moscow gradually strengthened its military potential at Ukraine’s borders.
In the spring of 2021, according to NATO intelligence, active preparations for the invasion began: troop movements, logistics, media operations. Merkel, sources in Berlin claim, tried to personally warn European colleagues about the risk of an “irreversible breakdown,” but her proposals found no support.
Her statement now sounds like an acknowledgment of the defeat of the old school of politics — the one that believed in “negotiations instead of weapons.”
Pandemic and diplomacy
In the interview, Merkel specifically noted that it was the COVID-19 pandemic that destroyed trust between countries.
“When leaders stopped seeing each other in person, everything that made diplomacy alive was gone. Zoom cannot replace eye contact,” she said.
Experts believe that this phrase hides not so much regret as an attempt to explain why Germany lost control over the eastern vector of its foreign policy. After all, it was during the pandemic years that Moscow began actively building a new geopolitical architecture, relying on energy and fear.
Europe without illusions
Today, three years after the invasion, Merkel’s statements are perceived as a reflection of Europe’s internal crisis.
Political scientist Andreas Umland noted in a comment for DW that such statements “reveal the old German illusion: that one can negotiate with Russia if one speaks more softly.”
Meanwhile, in Warsaw and Vilnius, her words are perceived as a “symbol of the old continent’s fatigue” — an attempt to absolve Berlin of responsibility for years of energy dependence on Gazprom and the refusal of military deterrence.
Who is to blame — and what next
Amid the ongoing war in Ukraine, the conversation about the past sounds painful. Merkel, who was long considered a symbol of European stability, increasingly evokes associations with an era of delays.
“When the German chancellor says that others are to blame, it is a signal not only to Europe but also to Putin, who sees this as a weakness of the West,” said Ukrainian political scientist Oleksiy Haran.
His words resonate in the German press as well. The publication Spiegel notes that the phrase “the Poles and the Balts are to blame” was uttered at the most inopportune moment — when the EU is trying to maintain unity in the face of Russian aggression and internal disagreements.
Legacy and perception
The trust rating for Merkel in Germany remains high, but now her figure raises more questions than answers.
Critics believe that it was her course towards rapprochement with Moscow, including the “Nord Stream 2” project, that became one of the factors that strengthened the Kremlin and weakened Europe’s energy independence.
Supporters of the former chancellor argue: without her diplomacy, perhaps the war would have started earlier.
However, even they admit — the time when one could “talk to Putin” is irretrievably gone.
Between justification and revelation
Political analysts call Merkel’s interview a “mix of self-reflection and reputation defense.” It is not the first time she tries to explain her own decisions — but now it sounds different.
Not as a politician’s report, but as a confession of a person whose era ended with the fall of Berlin on the gas front.
The irony of fate is that the woman long considered the “voice of reason in Europe” is now perceived as a symbol of its doubts.
Conclusion:
Angela Merkel has once again become the heroine of an international discussion — not as a chancellor, but as a reminder of a time when Europe believed in dialogue, not defense.
Her words about Poland and the Baltics became not just a political statement, but a metaphor for the old continent, which is still searching for where the line between guilt and lesson lies.
Today, when Ukrainian cities are still under attack, and the EU discusses another aid package, Merkel’s phrase sounds like an echo of another era — one where compromises sometimes became mistakes that cost the continent peace.
