If you blame Merkel for helping engineer the Minsk agreements, if you compare her with Chamberlain in Munich, you must have been born after 2015. If those deals hadn't been made, the Russian military would have steamrolled over a nearly defenseless Ukraine back then.
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The Ukrainian leadership of the time was frightened, lost, inexperienced. It had just given up Crimea in a helpless panic. The Ukrainian military had been destroyed by years of underfunding and corruption. It suffered a few horrible defeats.
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Those of us who watched the talks saw, and wrote, that the deals would be extremely hard to implement. Putin must have seen it, too, but back then, he still believed in deals. That saved Ukraine. Merkel & Hollande bought it time to establish a working statehood, build a military.
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I should probably add something re Nord Stream 2. It was offered to Putin as a carrot for good behavior (i.e., not attacking again). The carrot was easy to withdraw, and it was withdrawn in a matter of days when Putin attacked. It also never pumped a single cubic meter of gas.
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I know it has also been argued that in Muncih Chamberlain bought valuable time for Britain. But he only bought a year. Merkel bought seven -- quite enough for Ukraine to have become the military power it is today.
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Another key difference is that during the Munich talks, there was no urgency to stop an invasion already under way; during the Minsk talks, the Ukrainian military was being butchered and Russian/pro-Russian forces were making daily gains.
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I always thought Ukraine should have implemented Minsk agreement to the letter. Yes occupied Donbas would have been lost yet there would be no pretext for further war and the economic disaster of 2014-15 could have been avoided.
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You also realize, that it's not only Ukraine who has to implement the agreement, right?
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Nobody would blame Merkel ISOLATEDLY for forging Minsk agreement. That is, e.g., if she would have pressured, after 2014, for arms deliveries to and EU membership of Ukraine.
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That's too narrow: it was also Merkel who accepted the de-facto annexion of parts of Georgia. While doing nothing in 2008, the West enabled 2014 because according to Kremlin logic it was worth the try: almost no response for territorial gains and some kind of political control.
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what Merkel could do if even USA did nothing with war in Georgia? (nothing helpful)
USA pushed Georgia on a dangerous path without backing them when needed (they couldn't, but that's not the point)
Not their first time, not the last (curds, afghans)
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I blame her primarily for signing off NS2 just one year after Crimea anschluss, showing to putin that there's is no aggression Germany is not willing to ignore, as long as it's profitable.
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i fucking despise merkel's approach to russia in her foreign policy; however, i will recognize that this is perhaps the strongest case for her.
that does not mean i agree w it, it j means that all other arguments are weaker.
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I blame Merkel and the rest of the european politicians for not pushing Ukraine to implement Minsk 2 after signing it. This war is as much a failure of European foreign policy as it is of Putin's corona craze.
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Russia never wanted Minsk to succeed. They had full control over LDPR (all FSB puppets) and reliably broke the ceasefires after a few days.
They also changed the order to „autonomy before elections“ while Minsk was „ceasefire, common elections, autonomy“.
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No, it would not have. A.M. did what she could. Maybe not enough to get Minsk agreement fulfilled. The RF did refuse to integrate separatist territories back in 2014 altH. it could have, as you say resistance was low. The question stays what could have done more or better since.
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That's a red herring.
Merkel's blunder wasn't Minsk. It was that in the 8 years since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Germany *increased* its dependence on Russia and allowed its own military to rot even further.
What the heck was the plan?
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It must have been the classic Merkel plan of 'aussitzen'.
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You are probably right, but back in 2014 Putin was less insane and had feared sanctions more, so he'd hardly gone beyond Donetsk and Luhansk. He failed then with Dnipro, Kharkiv, Odessa and Mariupol, so he wouldn't dare send the troops there, let alone Kyiv
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I was born before 2015 and I disagree. Ukraine didn't defend Crimea because the West said so. They were scared of Putin. You can find this in the transcript of the Security Council meeting. I talked to the military representatives and they told me they could have defended Crimea.
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They didn't have to listen. But they panicked, as evident from the transcript you refer to.
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is this kind of analytics? for kindergarten maybe… merkels/obamas, all those politicians been doing this for years, since invasion of georgia and even earlier… this is not just abt ukraine, this is abt energy also, abt all their politics, kicking the can down the road… making
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problems just worse… that’s their typical politics… then, when it ends, all that just blows in their faces
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Lmao. Russia tried to steamroll Ukraine in 2015, but Azov stopped them in Mariupol.
Why do checkmarks begin following conflicts 8 years after they've begun?
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Yes, after 2014 aggression and Minsk pushing for NS2 construction, increasing dependence of RU energy sources and pumping Putin's regime with money... Nothing to blame for
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Is it okay to blame Merkel for shutting down nuclear power plants, thus making Germany (and Europe) even more dependent on Russian gas? How much is FSB paying Merkel?
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Excellent points. However, even Chamberlain bought the UK some time to better prepare for WWII - so not dissimilar, after all. It’s just that the man has become a bad symbol and nobody likes to be compared to him.
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Okay, what about Nord stream 2? Shall we also say big thank you for that? Shall we say big thank you for military exports to russia after 2014 Crimea annexation?
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If you want peace , prepare for war. The west should have MASSIVELY armed Ukraine after 2014 - instead , the gave Putin the ability to use Gas an oil as his most powerful weapon!
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And food
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Imagine Stalin had not concluded the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, and hadn’t the time to fully prepare for a German invasion..
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She blocked Ukraine joining NATO which would have prevented to ensuing carnage. Fact!!!
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You’re talking as if Nordstrema2 had nothing to do with it. In your mind, UKR is a problem then and now. Not rus, not ger. UKR was given fool’s choice, and ger played both side with a dictator. -ok, then act now.
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An excellent corrective to the 20-20 hindsight that dominates discussion of Ukraine’s war.
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Leonid Bershidskiy
@Bershidsky
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If you blame Merkel for helping engineer the Minsk agreements, if you compare her with Chamberlain in Munich, you must have been born after 2015. If those deals hadn't been made, the Russian military would have steamrolled over a nearly defenseless Ukraine back then.
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