{"id":478831,"date":"2025-10-06T20:07:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T20:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/478831\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T20:07:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T20:07:10","slug":"merkel-blasted-by-baltics-poland-for-suggesting-they-share-blame-for-russias-ukraine-invasion-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/478831\/","title":{"rendered":"Merkel blasted by Baltics, Poland for suggesting they share blame for Russia\u2019s Ukraine invasion \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIn June 2021, I felt that Putin was no longer taking the Minsk agreement seriously,\u201d Merkel said, referring to the peace agreement relating to control of Ukraine\u2019s eastern Donbas region following the 2014-2015 conflict. \u201cAnd that\u2019s why I wanted a new format where we, as the European Union, could talk directly with Putin.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a European Council meeting that month, Merkel and Macron proposed direct negotiations with other leaders in response to the buildup of Russian troops near Ukraine\u2019s border. But a coalition of Eastern European countries, including Poland, opposed the idea. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis was not supported by some. It was mainly the Baltic states, but Poland was also against it,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Merkel explained<\/a> that these countries had been \u201cafraid\u201d that \u201cwe would not have a common policy toward Russia \u2026 In any case, it didn\u2019t happen. Then I left office, and then Putin\u2019s aggression began.\u201d<\/p>\n

Directly contradicting Merkel, former Latvian Prime Minister Kri\u0161j\u0101nis Kari\u0146\u0161 said on Monday<\/a> that at the time, many countries had not understood Russia, \u201cincluding Germany and the former chancellor herself. <\/p>\n

\u201cI consistently told her that you cannot deal with Putin \u2018in good faith,\u2019 but she believed that the Baltic states were wrong. I was well aware of Merkel\u2019s views, but I am astonished that after everything that has happened in Ukraine, she still thinks this way,\u201d Kari\u0146\u0161 said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIn June 2021, I felt that Putin was no longer taking the Minsk agreement seriously,\u201d Merkel said, referring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[13402,767,1112,2000,299,11070,1824,158982,1113,1114,158983,809,770,18241,657,335],"class_list":{"0":"post-478831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-angela-merkel","9":"tag-baltics","10":"tag-estonia","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-german-politics","14":"tag-germany","15":"tag-krisjanis-karins","16":"tag-latvia","17":"tag-lithuania","18":"tag-mateusz-morawiecki","19":"tag-negotiations","20":"tag-poland","21":"tag-polish-politics","22":"tag-ukraine","23":"tag-war-in-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115329030161359485","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}