Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Merkel Reveals West’s Duplicity
Scott Ritter
07 Dec 2022
Merkel Reveals West’s Duplicity
Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin in Moscow, January 11, 2020 (Photo: EPA-EFE/MICHAEL KLIMENTYEV/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN POOL)

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted that the collective west never had any intention of honest dealings with Russia. This "war of choice" was not provoked by Russia.

This article was originally published in Consortium News.

Recent comments by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel shed light on the duplicitous game played by Germany, France, Ukraine and the United States in the lead-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February.

While the so-called “collective west” (the U.S., NATO, the E.U. and the G7) continue to claim that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was an act of “unprovoked aggression,” the reality is far different: Russia had been duped into believing there was a diplomatic solution to the violence that had broken out in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine in the aftermath of the 2014 U.S.-backed Maidan coup in Kiev.

Instead, Ukraine and its Western partners were simply buying time until NATO could build a Ukrainian military capable of capturing the Donbass in its entirety, as well as evicting Russia from Crimea.

In an interview last week with Der Spiegel, Merkel alluded to the 1938 Munich compromise. She compared the choices former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had to make regarding Nazi Germany with her decision to oppose Ukrainian membership in NATO, when the issue was raised at the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest.

By holding off on NATO membership, and later by pushing for the Minsk accords, Merkel believed she was buying Ukraine time so that it could better resist a Russian attack, just as Chamberlain believed he was buying the U.K. and France time to gather their strength against Hitler’s Germany

The takeaway from this retrospection is astounding. Forget, for a moment, the fact that Merkel was comparing the threat posed by Hitler’s Nazi regime to that of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and focus instead in on the fact that Merkel knew that inviting Ukraine into NATO would trigger a Russian military response.

Rather than reject this possibility altogether, Merkel instead pursued a policy designed to make Ukraine capable of withstanding such an attack.

War, it seems, was the only option Russia’s opponents had ever considered.

Putin: Minsk Was a Mistake

Merkel’s comments parallel those made in June by former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to several western media outlets. “Our goal,” Poroshenko declared, “was to, first, stop the threat, or at least to delay the war — to secure eight years to restore economic growth and create powerful armed forces.” Poroshenko made it clear that Ukraine had not come to the negotiating table on the Minsk Accords in good faith.

This is a realization that Putin has come to as well. In a recent meeting with Russian wives and mothers of Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, including a few widows of fallen soldiers, Putin acknowledged that it was a mistake to agree to the Minsk accords, and that the Donbass problem should have been resolved by force of arms at that time, especially given the mandate he had been handed by the Russian Duma regarding authorization to use Russian military forces in “Ukraine,” not just Crimea.

Putin’s belated realization should send shivers down the spine of all those in the West who operate on the misconception that there can now somehow be a negotiated settlement to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

None of Russia’s diplomatic interlocutors have demonstrated a modicum of integrity when it comes to demonstrating any genuine commitment to a peaceful resolution to the ethnic violence which emanated from the bloody events of the Maidan in February 2014, which overthrew an OSCE-certified, democratically-elected Ukrainian president.

Response to Resistance

When Russian speakers in Donbass resisted the coup and defended that democratic election, they declared independence from Ukraine. The response from the Kiev coup regime was to launch an eight-year vicious military attack against them that killed thousands of civilians. Putin waited eight years to recognize their independence and then launched a full-scale invasion of Donbass in February.

He had previously waited on the hope that the Minsk Accords, guaranteed by Germany and France and endorsed unanimously by the U.N. Security Council (including by the U.S.), would resolve the crisis by giving Donbass autonomy while remaining part of Ukraine. But Kiev never implemented the accords and were not sufficiently pressured to do so by the West.

The detachment shown by the West, as every pillar of perceived legitimacy crumbled — from the OSCE observers (some of whom, according to Russia, were providing targeting intelligence about Russian separatist forces to the Ukrainian military); to the Normandy Format pairing of Germany and France, which was supposed to ensure that the Minsk Accords would be implemented; to the United States, whose self-proclaimed “defensive” military assistance to Ukraine from 2015 to 2022 was little more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing — all underscored the harsh reality that there never was going to be a peaceful settlement of the issues underpinning the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

And there never will be.

War, it seems, was the solution sought by the “collective West,” and war is the solution sought by Russia today.

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.

On reflection, Merkel was not wrong in citing Munch 1938 as an antecedent to the situation in Ukraine today. The only difference is this wasn’t a case of noble Germans seeking to hold off the brutal Russians, but rather duplicitous Germans (and other Westerners) seeking to deceive gullible Russians.

This will not end well for either Germany, Ukraine, or any of those who shrouded themselves with the cloak of diplomacy, all the while hiding from view the sword they held behind their backs.

Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. His most recent book is Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, published by Clarity Press.

Germany
Angela Merkel
Vladimir Putin
Russia
Ukraine
Minsk Accords
MinskII

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Black Alliance For Peace
The Eurocentric U.S. “Left” Carries Water for Neoliberal Right, Again: Response to the Ukraine Solidarity Network
05 March 2025
It comes as no surprise that elements among the left continue to do the bidding of Western imperialist forces.
Nemanja Lukić
Imperialist Terrorism and Accumulation Through Sanctions: The Case of Serbia
29 January 2025
Since the launch of its military operation in Ukraine, Russia has become one of the most sanctioned countries in the world.
Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report Contributor
BRICS Declaration Reinforces Call for Multipolarity
30 October 2024
Kazan summit rejects unilateralism advanced by the West.
Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report Contributor
BRICS Plus, FOCAC and the Battle for the Global South
18 September 2024
The Russian-hosted summit scheduled for October will highlight the escalating struggle against Unipolarity.
Nemanja Lukić
Europe’s Thirst for Green Imperialism in Serbia
04 September 2024
The new lithium mining project between Germany and Serbia appears to be part of an ongoing imperialist strategy to compete with China.
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Biden Sliding Towards World War III
29 May 2024
The idea of a world war should not be relegated to science fiction.
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Western Arms Supplies to Ukraine Prevent Peaceful Solutions
22 May 2024
Margaret Kimberley, Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report, was invited to brief the
Anti-war march in New York City
Sara Flounders
Three U.S. wars Threaten World War Three: $95 Billion Targets Palestine, Iran, Russia and China
08 May 2024
The recent aid package passed by the U.S.
President Joe Biden and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky
Tyler Durden
Biden Looks To Prevent Future President From Ending Ukraine War With 10-Year Agreement
01 May 2024
The agreement Presidents Biden and Zelensky are attempting to put in place is another means by which this administration plans to circumvent th
Biden holding a Ukrainian refugee child
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Racist Asylum and Immigration Policy in the U.S. and Canada
06 March 2024
Fears of an “invasion” at the border are nothing more than white supremacy being openly expressed.

More Stories


  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio May 30, 2025
    30 May 2025
    In this week’s segment we talk about jails and prisons in New York City and State and the end of city control of the infamous Rikers Island jail. But first a Washington DC activist analyzes how the…
  • Democratic party where are you
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Afeni on Fighting the Bipartisan Fascist Consensus
    30 May 2025
    Afeni is an activist and lead organizer with Herb and Temple in Washington, DC. She joins us from Oakland to discuss politics in the U.S. and how the people can fight the fascism produced by the…
  • Rikers protest
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Eric Adams Loses Control of Rikers Island to Federal Receivership
    30 May 2025
    Our guest is Melanie Dominguez, Organizing Director, New York with the Katal Center for Equity, Health, and Justice. She joins us from New York City to discuss the federal takeover of Rikers Island…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Charles Rangel and the End of Black Politics
    28 May 2025
    The late Charles Rangel served as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus for more than 40 years. But the goals of Black politics and electoral politics are not necessarily the same.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: The Intellectual Origins of Imperialism and Zionism, Edward Said, 1977
    28 May 2025
    “In theory and in practice, then, Zionism is a degraded repetition of European imperialism.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us