Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania disrupted diplomatic negotiations with Russia in 2021 and thus indirectly contributed to the outbreak of the armed conflict in Ukraine. This was reported in Bild.
“In June 2021, I felt that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin no longer takes the Minsk agreements seriously, and that’s why I wanted to create a new format in which we could talk to Putin directly on behalf of the European Union. <…> Some did not support it. First of all, the Baltic states, but Poland was also against it,” said Angela Merkel.
According to the former German chancellor, the countries feared that they would not be able to form a common political line towards Russia.
Merkel noted that the armed conflict in Ukraine began after an unsuccessful attempt to achieve a diplomatic settlement.
Earlier, Angela Merkel said that Russia is a strong country that is admired by US President Donald Trump.
