"Has underestimated Putin" - CDU politicians sharply criticize Merkel for Russia policy
Created: 12/21/2022 10:13 am
By: Patrick Mayer
Speaks fluent Russian: Former Chancellor Angela Merkel, here at a meeting with Vladimir Putin in August 2021 in the Moscow Kremlin.
© IMAGO / SNA
Shortly before Christmas, the CDU made sharp criticism of Angela Merkel's role in Germany's Russia policy.
The ex-Chancellor is not doing well.
Munich/Berlin – what could have prevented them?
What not?
For years, the political influence of former Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) on Russian President Vladimir Putin was considered to be great.
Against the background of the Ukraine war, however, this question is being discussed again.
Angela Merkel: Sharp criticism of the Russia policy of the ex-Chancellor from the CDU
Striking: For weeks, the 68-year-old ex-head of government (2005 to 2021) has been trying to straighten out her role in interviews.
The Union politician justified, first in an interview with
Der Spiegel
and then in Die
Zeit
, why she was no longer able to exert the described influence on Putin.
Before the Moscow rulers started the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
Prominent CDU foreign politicians have now sharply criticized the Russia policy of their former party leader.
This emerges from quotes from a recent analysis by the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)
.
Accordingly, Roderich Kiesewetter, chairman of the Union faction in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Bundestag, and Johann Wadephul placed the criticism.
The 59-year-old North Frisian is a deputy member of the Committee on European Union Affairs, the Defense Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee.
In the video: Compact - The most important news about the Russia-Ukraine war
"After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Merkel relied on the Minsk process, i.e. on diplomacy.
It refused to train the Ukrainian army and to supply weapons," Kiesewetter told the
FAZ
. However, a "military underpinning" was necessary, the willingness to use "hard power" in addition to "soft power" of diplomacy, explained the 59 -year-old Swabian.
Vladimir Putin: According to the CDU politician, Angela Merkel "did wrong conclusions"
Although Merkel assessed Putin soberly and realistically, "from today's perspective, she drew the wrong conclusions," Kiesewetter added.
He criticized the fact that Merkel had not changed her course towards Moscow even after Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.
“She refused to train the Ukrainian army and supply weapons.
Instead, they relied exclusively on diplomacy without military underpinnings, i.e. the Minsk process,” said Kiesewetter.
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It has refused to train and supply arms to the Ukrainian army.
Roderich Kiesewetter (CDU) on ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel
"Angela Merkel was critical of Putin, but she never wanted a complete confrontation with Russia.
She always tried to find some form of balance.
She was always of the opinion that Putin had to be involved," Wadephul told the
FAZ
. Merkel believed that Russia's "cravings in the Eurasian region" could be curbed in this way.
"She underestimated that Putin would actually do things he talked about," criticized the North German.
Angela Merkel: Ex-Chancellor defends her Russia policy
Merkel, who speaks fluent Russian, has recently repeatedly defended her Russia policy.
She came to the conclusion that I made my decisions at the time in a way that I can understand today.
It was an attempt to prevent exactly such a war," she told Die
Zeit
in early December , saying: "The fact that it didn't work doesn't mean that the attempts were wrong."
In their eyes, the “introduction to NATO accession of Ukraine and Georgia discussed in 2008” was “wrong”.
Her reason: "Neither did the countries have the necessary prerequisites for this, nor was it thought through to the end what the consequences of such a decision would have been, both with regard to Russia's actions against Georgia and Ukraine and to NATO and its rules of assistance."
At the end of her term of office, the CDU politician had already explained to the news magazine Spiegel
at the end of November that she no longer saw any possibility of influencing Putin
: "I no longer had the strength to assert myself, because everyone knew that she would be gone in the fall. She wanted to "create an independent European discussion format with Putin again with Emmanuel Macron in the EU Council" - following the failed Minsk II agreement. In vain.
Russia policy: Angela Merkel describes talks with Vladimir Putin
"The feeling was very clear: You're through in terms of power politics.
For Putin, only power counts," she explained: "In the end, I hadn't gotten a millimeter further in terms of foreign policy, even with so many things we tried again and again.
Not only as far as Ukraine is concerned.
Transnistria and Moldova, Georgia and Abkhazia, Syria and Libya.
It was time for a new approach.”
Her successor as Chancellor, Olaf Scholz (SPD), must now be responsible for this.
In the negotiations on the Ukraine war, it is up to him and Macron, among other things, to negotiate international conditions for a possible ceasefire.
(pm)
