WARSAW, Poland (Chatnewstv.com) — Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has claimed that Poland and the Baltic states blocked a 2021 proposal for the European Union to hold direct negotiations with Russia on Ukraine, suggesting the failure encouraged Moscow’s path to a full-scale invasion.
The remarks, made in an interview on Oct. 3 with the Hungarian YouTube channel Partizan, drew a furious backlash from Polish political figures, who accused the long-serving chancellor of having “blood on her hands.”
Merkel, a key broker of the 2014 and 2015 Minsk peace accords that froze the initial conflict in Ukraine’s Donbas region, said she sensed a shift in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attitude in the months before the 2022 invasion.
“Already in June 2021, I felt that Putin was no longer taking the Minsk agreement seriously and that is why I wanted a new format,” Merkel said. “Back then we could talk to Putin directly as the EU.”
She alleged, however, that the initiative was derailed within the European Council by member states wary of a unified EU approach to Moscow.
“Some at the European Council did not support that. They were primarily the Baltic States – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – but Poland was also against it because they feared that we would not have a common policy towards Russia,” Merkel said. She added that because there was no consensus, her proposal was dropped.
The comments sparked outrage among Poland’s conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, which was in government at the time of the proposed talks.
“Angela Merkel has confirmed that she is one of the most damaging German politicians in Europe,” former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki posted on social media.
Mariusz Błaszczak, head of the PiS parliamentary caucus, called Merkel “one of the funders of the Putin regime for her role in promoting trade with Russia” and demanded that current Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a past ally of the former chancellor, denounce her remarks.
Adam Bielan, a PiS Member of the European Parliament, offered a searing critique of Merkel’s energy policy, which deepened Germany’s reliance on Russian gas via the Nord Stream pipelines.
“Merkel lost the opportunity to stay silent,” Bielan said. “If it had not been for her support for the Nord Stream gas pipelines Putin would not have had the funds to start this war. She has blood on her hands.”
Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz, Poland’s current development minister and a former ambassador to Moscow, also condemned the statements, saying “they were fuelling Russian propaganda.”
The Minsk agreements, brokered by the “Normandy format” of Germany, France, Russia, and Ukraine, established a fragile ceasefire but ultimately failed to resolve the conflict. Russia has repeatedly blamed the West and Kyiv for the accords’ failure.
