Overview

• In an interview with Hungary’s Partizan while promoting her memoir Freedom, Angela Merkel argued that Poland and the Baltic states bear partial responsibility for enabling the 2022 invasion.
• Merkel said that by June 2021 she believed the Minsk process had run its course and proposed an EU format for direct talks with Putin that Warsaw and the Baltic capitals opposed.
• She said those governments feared the EU would fail to hold a common line on Russia if such talks went ahead.
• Merkel also suggested that pandemic lockdowns curtailed face‑to‑face diplomacy with the Kremlin and reduced the chance of finding compromises.
• Her remarks drew sharp criticism in Poland, including from former prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki, and they landed as Russia carried out heavy strikes across Ukraine, with officials reporting more than 50 missiles and roughly 500 drones and at least five deaths, including four in Lviv.