“It’s a great sadness that it didn’t work out, but I don’t blame myself for not trying,” said Merkel, speaking of the 2014 Minsk agreement with Russia.
Merkel, who led the West’s imposition of sanctions on Russia in 2014 after its annexation of Crimea, said the Minsk agreement had calmed the situation and gave Ukraine time to become what it is today. Merkel said there was no justification for Russia’s “brutal disregard of international law” in Ukraine, adding that she had been against a plan to let Ukraine into NATO because she wanted to prevent escalation with Russia and Ukraine was not ready.
A fluent Russian-speaker after growing up in the former communist East Germany, Merkel drew criticism from the United States and others for supporting the planned Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, designed to deliver Russian gas directly to Germany.