Angela Dorothea Merkel, the former German Chancellor, revealed in an interview with Die Zeit (published on December 7) that the West’s strategy towards Moscow, ever since 2014, has been to prepare Ukraine for a war against Russia. She said: “The 2014 Minsk Agreement was an attempt to give Ukraine time. Kiev also used that time to get stronger, as can be seen today. Ukraine was not so modern in 2014-15.” Furthermore, Merkel stressed that the West should have intervened to stop Russia’s aggressiveness much earlier. Her remarks demonstrate that NATO’s mantra about an unprovoked intervention by the Russians is deliberately fraudulent.

A few weeks ago, former Ukrainian President Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko had admitted that Kiev’s goal in signing the Minsk Agreements, which were designed to put an end to the killing in the Donbass and to negotiate autonomy, was to “delay the war, to secure eight years to restore economic growth and create powerful Armed Forces”. However, France and Germany, which had mediated the accords, were also duplicitous, and it was strategically explosive.

Commenting on the former German Chancellor’s remarks during a press conference on December 10 on the sidelines of the Eurasian Economic Union Summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin said: “Frankly speaking, I did not expect to hear this from a former Federal Chancellor, because I’ve always proceeded from the assumption that the leaders of Germany were sincere with us.” However, it shows that Russia “was right” to launch the special military operation, added Putin. Despite the intention of the Ukrainians, the Russian strongman stressed: “I was still hoping that other participants in this process were sincere with us. It appears they were deceiving us as well. The only purpose was to pump arms into Ukraine and get it ready for hostilities…. Perhaps, we should have started all this earlier, but we still simply hoped to come to terms under these Minsk Agreements.”

The reaction of President Putin leads to the question of trust, which was “already close to zero” before Merkel issued her statement. “How can there be negotiations? What can be negotiated? Are there any guarantees? We’re ready for agreements; we’re open, but this makes us stop to think about who we are dealing with,” added the Russian president.

Indeed, quite irrespective of Moscow’s position, NATO’s justification for waging a proxy war on Russia and urging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy to refuse to negotiate, is crumbling as the truth comes out. So, who can mediate at this point? The idea had been floated over the past weeks that Angela Merkel might be able to play such a role; however, she has discredited herself completely, for whatever reasons. This plays into the hands of the British strategy, consisting of staging provocations to sabotage any negotiated settlement. The one option that is available is the offer by the Vatican to serve as a venue for peace talks.

This article was first published in Strategicalert portal of the Schiller Institute on December 14, 2022. The Schiller Institute is a Germany based Political and Economic Think Tank founded by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, with stated members in 50 countries.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das