Merkel urges Ukraine to pursue diplomatic end to conflict
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged Ukraine to “consider diplomatic solutions” as well as military ones to end the conflict with Russia. However, Merkel refused to say when Kiev should enter talks with Moscow.
Speaking to German broadcaster ZDF on Thursday, Merkel said that she supports Chancellor Olaf Scholz’ decision to reverse decades of foreign policy pacifism and arm the Ukrainian military, declaring that it is “not only in the interest of Ukraine but also in our interest that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin does not win this war.”
Merkel added that while she supports “everything the international community is doing to put Ukraine in a good position,” one “must always consider diplomatic solutions in parallel.”
The former chancellor said that Kiev should seek a diplomatic solution when the time is right, without explaining when this would be.
Merkel served as Germany’s chancellor from 2005 to 2021, and was one of the guarantors of the 2014-15 Minsk agreements, under which the Ukrainian military and pro-independence forces in Donetsk and Lugansk agreed to stop fighting in exchange for Kiev granting some autonomy to the two majority Russian-speaking regions.
In 2022, Merkel admitted that the agreements were in fact an “attempt to give Ukraine time” to build up its military in preparation for a more intense conflict with Russia.
In her recently-published memoirs, Merkel defended her decision to block Ukraine from joining NATO in 2008, arguing that the current conflict would have begun years earlier if Kiev had been given a green light to join the US-led military bloc.
”It was completely clear to me that President Putin would not have stood idly by and watched Ukraine join NATO,” she told the BBC earlier this week. “And back then, Ukraine as a country would certainly not have been as prepared as it was in February 2022.”
US President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to force Ukraine and Russia to end the conflict with a diplomatic settlement, without elaborating on how he will achieve this goal. One of the plans reportedly being considered by Trump’s team is “a reimagining of the failed Minsk agreements,” the Financial Times reported last month, citing an anonymous “long-term Trump adviser.”
The Kremlin has cast doubt on Trump’s ability to easily end the conflict, but Putin said earlier this month that the incoming president’s words “deserve attention, at the very least.”
Moscow maintains that any settlement must begin with Ukraine ceasing military operations and acknowledging the “territorial reality” that it will never regain control of the Russian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, as well as Crimea. In addition, the Kremlin insists that the goals of its military operation – which include Ukrainian neutrality, demilitarization, and denazification – will be achieved.
