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Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended her report on dealing with Vladimir Putin in her first main interview since leaving workplace, studies BBC.
She mentioned she had “nothing to apologies for” over her response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, when she supported sanctions.
She additionally defended her opposition in workplace to Ukraine becoming a member of Nato.
Mrs Merkel has been accused of leaving Germany weak by pursuing business-led relations with Russia.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline to hold Russian pure fuel on to Germany was constructed whereas she was chancellor and solely suspended by her successor, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, shortly earlier than Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February.
Below strain to impose stringent new sanctions over the invasion, Germany is struggling to cut back its dependence on Russian vitality with out damaging its personal financial system.
However Mrs Merkel mentioned Europe and Russia have been neighbours that would not ignore one another. “We’ve to discover a solution to co-exist regardless of all our variations,” she mentioned.
The invasion was “not simply unacceptable but additionally a significant mistake by Russia”, she informed German journalist and writer Alexander Osang in an interview televised by broadcaster ARD.
“If we begin going again by means of the centuries and arguing over which little bit of territory ought to belong to whom, then we’ll solely have warfare,” she mentioned. “That is not an choice in any way.”
She defended the sanctions imposed on Russia in response to the annexation of Crimea and Germany’s function in sustaining the Minsk peace course of, which was meant to finish the preventing in japanese Ukraine in 2014-15.
The peace course of, she argued, allowed Ukraine time to develop as a nation and strengthen its army.
“I haven’t got in charge myself for not attempting arduous sufficient,” she mentioned. “I do not see that I’ve to say ‘that was fallacious’ and that is why I’ve nothing to apologise for.”
She had opposed Nato membership for Ukraine in 2008, she mentioned, as a result of she had wished to forestall escalation with Russia and since Ukraine itself was not prepared. “That wasn’t the Ukraine we all know right now,” she mentioned. “The nation was not secure, it was riddled with corruption.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose nation stays exterior the Nato alliance regardless of intensive Western defence assist because the invasion, has described Germany’s resolution in 2008 as a “miscalculation”.
On Tuesday Mrs Merkel, who left workplace six months in the past, mentioned she had “the very best respect” for Mr Zelensky and was impressed by “the braveness and keenness” with which Ukrainians have been preventing for his or her nation.
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